Monday we all made it to the baseball game. The boys and I came later once the game was started. They carried ponchos and umbrellas off to the bleachers while I stayed in the car and listened to the radio and watched the game. After about a half hour I went a little closer and sat in the grass for another half hour, feeling very much at home. I got up to leave just about the time the tornado sirens went off and they called the game.

God and I have been spending lots of quality time alone together. This is one of the ways I’ve reframed this situation to make it feel a little more comforting. “Wow, God, you must have really just wanted to spend so much extra time with me right now.” I’m so used to interpreting any type of pain I feel as God loving me, based on that verse about God disciplining the son he loves. And yet, that right there is one of those hidden heart places where I’ve been so wrong. There are pains that have nothing to do with love, and it is only by an act of God’s actual love that you can ever be free from them.

The thing is, me reframing my reality doesn’t make the truth any more or less true. God wants to be with us whether we realize it or not, whether we see him or not, whether we want to be anywhere near him or not. He wants to know us wants us to know him. Last week I finished watching season one of The Chosen. Recently I went back and watched where Jesus heals and hugs a leper. How lowly is the heart of God for sinners.