ever fixed mark

I can't remember much about studying Shakespeare in high school. There is, however, something about the words of his Sonnet 116 that sometimes dance through my mind.

Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken.

The words are so beautiful and the meaning so deep.

So many times in the last few days I have turned my thoughts to love. More specifically, I have turned my thoughts to God's love for His children.

Over the course of a variety of conversations, my heart keeps returning to the depth of His love for us.

It is an ever fixed mark that looks not at tempests and is never shaken.

His love never fails.

It can't.

But it so beyond our comprehension. We want to fit His love isn't the measurements of our ideals and He cannot and will not fit. Just like Shakespeare said, it does not alter. As humans we know broke love based on emotions and expectations. God's love does not work like thatS

When I was a young girl I remember singing,

"The love of God is greater far
Than tongue or pen can ever tell
It goes beyond the highest star
And reaches to the lowest hell
The guilty pair, bowed down with care
God gave His Son to win
His erring child He reconciled
And pardoned from his sin

Could we with ink the ocean fill
And were the skies of parchment made
Were every stalk on earth a quill
And every man a scribe by trade
To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry 
Nor could the scroll contain the whole
Though stretched from sky to sky

O love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure
The saints' and angels' song"

Remember those words and remembering the depth of His love, fill my eyes with tears.

I cannot begin to understand or comprehend the love of the Lord.

But I will rest in it.

And I will speak it until the final breath passes from my lungs. 

Because there is nothing greater.


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