tears pooled behind my sunglasses on the drive to church yesterday. only an hour earlier, i was at my ugliest, angry and frustrated over something small. can you say wardrobe drama? i asked my husband's forgiveness. he offered it, warm with feeling and a hand lying on my leg for company. i unraveled a little more of myself into the sharing place that is our marriage. i lamented having such a tender heart. my failure from the morning would cost me heavily now in guilt and fear that he, that God, wouldn't see me with the same love i had as before. i confessed with a shaking voice that though i knew God loved me, i didn't really know. i lacked the healthy audacity to stand confident in it even as i yelled and threw shoes. i didn't dare. i got out of the car asking my husband if mascara was running down my face. as we sat down to the sermon, our pastor read the scripture. ephesians 3:16-20

"according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his power in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith -- that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power within us." esv, emphasis mine

it was as if it was for me. i had never thought to ask God for strength to fathom his love for me, as our pastor strongly urged us to. he passionately stated that God loved us more than we knew.  it was as if God had heard me in the car and answered my question with a message that had been recorded the night before. 

again, i query why i don't bring a box of tissues with me to church. i always need them.