The Cotton Patch & a Powerfully Pure-hearted Love

Shortly after I gave my life to Christ in high school, I went on my first missions trip to Mexico. We piled in to the old church van affectionately named “Hersey.”

As we drove through expansive miles of beloved Texas fields, we cranked down the windows and yelled, “Heeeeyyyyy!!! Cooooooowwwww!” to see how many cows might look up and give us the time of day. Those were the days. It was one of the first times in my life I felt I belonged. I had finally found my people.

Flavors of Home

We stopped at a restaurant in small town Texas panhandle called the Cotton Patch. I grew up driving these toads to go see my grandma and grandpa, and the smell of fried chicken and fresh baked rolls filled the air as we walked in, making me feel very at home. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath in. They didn’t have this kind of cookin’ in Colorado, the kind that make love stick to your bones. Reading the board of daily specials made my mouth water. Fried okra, cream gravy, sweet tea… these were the flavors of home.

I put on a brave face, but the the smells of home were deeply comforting. Hopping in a van with newfound friends and driving to the ranchitos of Mexico at age 17 is kind of a big deal, even if this first leg of the journey felt familiar to me.

Fresh Baked Bread & Fresh Churned Love

As I turned the corner in the restaurant, I saw my entire family there! All sitting at the table and smiling and beaming and waiting, just for me. They’d come from different towns in the panhandle to meet me for dinner. There’s no way to convey my surprise and there’s no way to explain how deeply loved I felt. Grandma, grandpa (who now lives in heaven), aunts and uncles (Uncle Tom lives in heaven now too), and bouncy bubbly cousins galore!

Mom and dad must have set this up for me. I had my family and my church family all in one place. All loving me. We laughed and feasted! I felt so loved that I could burst with joy and belonging and happiness and fresh baked rolls with butter and jam!

Bread Cloths & Thin Spaces

After our goodbyes, I went to the motel room alone. The others in youth group played chicken in the pool. My family drove their separate ways. And I shut the door quietly behind me, kneeled down on the floor of the bathtub, and I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. Not because I was sad. Because I was loved.

I felt so deeply deeply loved that I could feel my physical body wasn’t strong enough to hold the love in. I didn’t just know in my head that I was loved. I deeply felt it that day. I wish we all had moments like that and more frequently than we do.

In that moment, there was no doubt that my physical person was frail, like my flesh was stretched thin as a worn out bread cloth with worn out holes. And it was almost purifyinginly painful to hold such glory and such a pure and powerful love.

Like a worn-out bread cloth becomes stretched thin and see-through, I became a thin space where heaven filled earth. Stretched by the power and the purity of God’s love for me. I became an old wine skin about to physically burst with the power of this new love. In that moment, I lived Ephesians 3:14-20.

Needing Strength to Hold Love

Later, I wrote those words down and taped them to the wall by my bedside pillow in my college dorm room. I can’t read Paul’s prayer without being on my knees again in the floor of a motel bathtub, sobbing at the purity and power of God’s love for me. Frail and broken me. Surrounded by the love of my whole family on earth as it will be in heaven:

“For this reason, I kneel before the Father, from whom His whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know the love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”

Ephesians 3:14-20

A Prayer to Pray when you don’t have the words

Father, forgive us for our unbelief in your great love. Show us what you truly think when you think about us. Show us how you truly feel about us. Reveal and break off all the lies we believe. Show us your deep love. Strengthen our inner being to know how much you love us. May we have grace to receive it. In Jesus’ name, amen

Til next time… Toodle-loo and peace be with you.