The Only Answer Big Enough (part one)

Chapter 3 

Jesus loves me; this I know! 

This song is the theme song of my life.

It’s everything I need to know. 

And I’m certain He sang it to me in the womb when I was yet unformed, curled up tight in warm darkness.

Guitar

Did His fingers gently strum the strings of my heart, just “I love you.” Strum. 

“I love you.” Strum. 

“I love you.” Strum. “And that’s all you need to know.”

Did He thrum life into me while my mother’s heart beat steadily just above me? 

Did my mother’s and the Savior’s heartbeats drum and strum till I knew this song by heart before I was born because I would need to know and find this love later—to know it deep down before my feet touched the floor and I learned to walk?

It seems to me I still walk better when first I curl over and bow on my knees. 

I walk better when I crawl out of bed and kneel rather than jump out and run. 

When my heart pounds after Jesus before my feet pound after anything else, I hear Him coax me as a father to his little girl, “Come to Me.”

I learn how to walk, just like this, by spending time on my knees.

Oh, I've wobbled and toddled and fallen; and He's always there. Always with open arms. 

Seems to me that walking into His arms has a lot to do with kneeling at His feet. 

Maybe my soul walks best when my flesh is still. It's true, my heart and my flesh fail, but God is the strength of my heart. He says so in Psalm 73:26.

How many wilderness miles have I pounded out on foot before heaving out breathless, “Where are You?” and crumpling? Then gasping out, “Why?”

Why is a little word that carries weight too big. It’s a little one’s favorite word, and the only big-enough answer is “Because I love you.”

Little One

When trouble is afoot, questions follow on the heel. God must hear the question, “Why?” more often than any other. In the wild we question wildly, and it seems I’ve bit the word out defiantly there, before the crumple.

But the why, the true why that asks bent over and true, comes on the knees.

What if I heard “Because I love you” when anything else is more than I can understand? I suspect He says it more often than I hear it.

What if I answered, “Because Jesus loves me,” whenever asked, “How are you managing so well right now?” 

I know what would happen because I was asked just yesterday. 

“Because Jesus loves me” earned me a look as if I were a little simple-minded and off my rocker. It was a look that said, “Yeah, everybody knows that little children’s song.”

It’s an unsatisfying answer to many, and I get it. It used to be unsatisfying to me, too; until I searched the One who says it with complete satisfaction, "I love you."

His love is real answer to my “Why-y-y-y?”questions. That’s what it sounds like; an infant’s cry when she wants to be held, a cry from a one-year-old in a high chair who wants to be fed, a cry from the toddler who has skinned up hands and knees from a fall on the pavement, and a cry from a two-year-old who wants now but doesn’t get till later or never.

It’s a legitimate cry-just why?

Why aren’t you picking me up? 

Why are you feeding me mashed peas when I want ice cream? 

Why am I hurting? 

Why can’t I have what I want, need, now?” 

But if the why turns into why-y-y-y and carries out the long I sound, then the question becomes a demand, and the answer can’t be heard or accepted over the I wail. 

Because I love you isn’t heard when I wails loud why questions. 

Because I love you can’t be heard until I sits down and quiets—until the “I’m making it through this because, hey, I'm doing it; I'm following the letter of the law" kind of talk falls flat on its face and becomes “I’m making it through this pretty much in the fetal position because, yeah, I’m crawling to Him and His wide-open arms are closed tight around me and Jesus loves me.” 

Because. 

He. 

Loves. 

Me.

It's the only answer big enough for every why question, to me.

written by: Carolyn-Elizabeth Roehrig

(adapted from my book, Pisteuo! Connecting with God's Heart)