Love through a firehose

My breathing is getting easier, though with this silly oxymeter on my finger and Albuterol making me shake every two hours, my typing is not. Small potatoes, though, compared to the feel of clean air returning to my chest and lungs and the pleasant flavor of chicken and cheese on my tongue again. As the code blue alert rushes nurses into action down the hall to the fading sound of the nightly waxing machine skidding across the floor, making their way swifter, I breathe - breathe thanks to the Breath of Life - because today I can.

One of my Women's Club students, Rosa, came by to visit me today. She laid hands on me and prayed over me in Spanish. Three of the youth night girls came by with new socks and chocolates and hugs. One of our Sunday students, who now works at the hospital, popped in and promised to check in again. Meng Pu and one of his daughters were here the other day to pray over me. My little songbird, Maelynn, lifted my spirits with a song of joy. All my sweet friends and helpers and ministry partners and family, who already do so much for me on my best days, have come by for the same thing too.

They've all come in and out of my room over the days, and leave by lavishing so much love... and today it honestly puzzled me. Why do these people have so much love for me? I mean, I love them, and I know they love me, but this love seems so much more powerful and transcendent... like, for every teaspoon I try to dish out I get knocked over by a deluge waterfall. There's no way I can keep up with it, it's just too big, and I am overwhelmed. I do not deserve this love, and yet I basque in it. Because I know no person on earth has the power to produce this.

I'm not good at formulas, but I feel like I'm beginning to learn one... that when you join God in his story, he leads you to his Springs of Life, where he fills you, and overflows you, so that the smallness of you is consumed in the greatness of His love, drawing others to the spring to be filled to overflow, and their overflow flows back into you and you into them, and the more people who gather, the more his mercies flow... the power of a firehose dowsing us, blessing us, filling us more.

Dear loved ones, from my teaspoon to your garden hose tonight, be filled with his love.