December 21, 2023
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Divine Love
by Christy Moore
My husband, JB, was diagnosed with brain cancer when we were both 39. The night before he had surgery, I dreamed I was driving across the ocean on a one-lane bridge without a guard rail. I wanted to go back to the shore behind me, but the road was too narrow. I couldn’t turn around, and I would surely veer off the bridge if I tried driving in reverse. In the dream, I began asking God to transport me back to the place from where I’d come. I was praying with all my might when the heavens opened and the giant, loving hands of God came through the clouds to lift my car off the road. I was overjoyed. It turned out not to be the salvation I hoped for, though. The hands didn’t return me to the shore behind me; instead, they carried me forward toward the far shore I wanted desperately to flee from.
JB died nine months later. In spite of all my prayers, God did not intervene in our lives with a miraculous cure. The miracle that did occur during that dark time is that I came to feel that I was surrounded by love. It was delivered to me in the material world by human hands, many of them here at UUMC. In the land of sleep, I got a glimpse of the divine love that surrounds us all and the promise that, even in my darkest hour, I am held in the loving hands of God.
“May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy.”
“When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability... To be alive is to be vulnerable.”