Painfully Holy

Last night, I glimpsed something so Holy, so beautiful, it hurt.  It haunted my subconscious so that I couldn't sleep but for a few hours before waking again, and it has continued to haunt my consciousness today…

It feels almost too Holy to share because it risks being tossed aside and trampled instead of being acknowledged as the precious, priceless—yes priceless, pearl it is.  Not that I believe one would cast such Holiness aside on purpose, or on a level meant to treat it as something that doesn't have worth; but one might cast it aside because it was too Holy to view—to really view. Because when you see something so Holy and so Beautiful as this, and you really allow yourself to view it… to gaze at it… to absorb it… you are cut to the core with a pain that says, “Let the whole world be silent” –a Holy pain… and you know it will never leave you the same…

No, you can’t ever be the same…

Why?

Because you’ve seen the face of God.

“Behold, He standeth behind our wall, He looketh forth at the windows,

shewing Himself through the lattice.”

Song of Solomon 2:9

Sometimes, God peaks through, if we let Him.  If we let the wall down that protects our hearts and minds from His Holiness—a Holiness so beyond what we can imagine that it not only hurts, but as God told Moses in Exodus 33:20, "You cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live."

And so it is, and so it was with the glimpse I caught last night… a glimpse of God’s own face… a glimpse of

His Glorious Face…

His Most Holy Face…

His Most Beautiful Face…

And now I am cut to the quick with this Holy pain—this Holy Shard—and if I let it work its way into my heart, as God has said, a part of me must die...

Jamie Lash writes in her book, A Kiss A Day, “We get glimpses of God’s glory. But mostly we see through a glass dimly.  One day we will see Him face to face.  We know in part, but then we shall know, just as we are known. (1 Corinthians 13:12)” 

   

I think this too is what happened to me last night.  By seeing that glimpse of His face, I saw what He sees—what He sees every day.  By seeing that glimpse of His face, I knew what He knows—what He knows every day.  And seeing and knowing, I then felt what He feels—just a glimmer of what He feels, everyday… And to try to put that in human terms in no way will ever do it justice…

 

It was Holy… painfully Holy.

It was Beautiful… painfully Beautiful.

It was Glorious… painfully Glorious.

It was Love.

It was God.