The tiny village of Oia on the island of Santorini, Greece, 2009 . It overlooks the volcano seen here in the distance, known to have destroyed 2/3 of the island centuries ago. Many believe it to be the 'Lost City of Atlantis.' I took this shot right at sunset, standing on a small path that led down to the house where we were staying with friends. This was literally the view we woke up to each morning.
God's love is meteoric, his loyalty astronomic, His purpose titanic, his verdicts oceanic.
Yet in His largeness nothing gets lost; Not a man, not a mouse, slips through the cracks.
Psalm 36:5-6
This verse never fails to leave me speechless. It's the type I need to sit, cup of tea in hand, and read over and over and over. It reminds me of an experience I had a years ago as a sophomore in college...
Josh and I were newly married, and one afternoon we dropped in at our local Border's bookstore to grab coffee and browse around for a bit. As we walked in I immediately headed towards the back corner where I knew there were cushy chairs to sink into as he wandered off a different direction, I didn't even bother asking where. I grabbed a couple books along the way that looked interesting, and just as I was about to settle in, a title on a bottom shelf grabbed my attention, The Hand of God. It was filled with stunning photos from deep space, the kinds of images you can truly only imagine. Forever a lover of the stars, I stared at the pages entirely mesmerized.
As I kept flipping, totally enraptured, suddenly I came to a curious halt. My eyes fell on a huge photo that looked like millions of tiny spirals floating in space. As I read the caption I tried desperately to wrap my brain around what it was telling me... that this image was, in fact, countless tiny spirals, each and every one of them an entire galaxy filled with billions upon billions of stars. What?! I struggled to stretch the boundaries of my mind around what that looked like... Our planet orbits around a single star we can't even fathom reaching it's so many light years away... and our sun is only a single star among billions of billions of stars in our one galaxy... and beyond our one galaxy there are billions upon billions of other entire galaxies that make up our universe...
Whoa. I suddenly felt very, very small. I was almost sick to my stomach. I knew God. I knew Him intimately, loved him desperately... But suddenly I wondered if He really knew me. I had always believed He did, better than I even knew myself. But I couldn't stop the sudden overwhelming, suffocating feeling of being totally, completely, entirely purposeless on the face of an enormous planet, in an even more enormous galaxy, floating inside an infinitely gigantic universe. I wanted to throw up.
Out of nowhere Josh walked up beside me, "Hey, listen to this!" He was flipping thru a random little hardback gift book of all things, titled I Hope You Dance. In the middle of a dramatic, Terrica-style internal meltdown I was only half listening as he read, until suddenly I realized he was reading about the stars, the universe, their beauty, their vastness. I stared at him speechlessly, jaw literally hanging open. And then the words that pierced me to the very depths of my soul in a way I can never, ever express, "... but just remember, the stars don't have anything on you!"
My entire world halted on it's axis.
It was as if the God of the Universe literally reached down from heaven, took my quivering chin in his infinitely generous hand like a toddler on the verge of meltdown, locked eyes and spoke literally into my shaken, doubt-filled heart, "No no... Not a chance... I see your every day, your every breath, this very moment. I not only see you, I see no one else. You are mine. I am yours. This vast and brilliant universe has nothing on you."
Tears filled my eyes, completely stunned in every sense of the word. Josh was still standing over me, completely oblivious to the role he'd just played in a moment that would never leave me, a moment I would point to over the years in moments of doubt and unbelief. He laughed, happily amused and tossed the book on a nearby shelf, "Wasn't that cool??" And walked away.
It took me a minute to pull myself together, but I left that day knowing unquestionably, unwavering, that God sees my every breath. Though He holds the galaxies in orbit and tends to every sparrow, He isn't too busy. On the contrary, His eyes never leave me. It's impossible.
If you're feeling small today friend, be encouraged. His eyes are on you. You can't escape His love.