He leans in.

He’s looking at me, I’m looking at Him and I’m not even sure where we are. The atmosphere isn’t my focus because we are each sitting in our chairs looking face to face into one another’s eyes. No one else is around. Not a soul. It’s just me and Him.

He’s humongous and His chair is monstrous compared to mine. Although He towers over me, we are still, somehow, each leaning in eye to eye. Of course, I don’t question it. It feels more right than anything I’ve ever felt or known.

He knows me. I mean really knows me.

It’s truly as if He can see right through me. Every single part of me exposed, every thought, every memory, and every motive; and I’m completely aware of it. Yet there’s nowhere that feels more safe.

So vulnerable.

All is seen.

Nevertheless, I have no urge to hide. For that matter, I have no urge to ever look away.

It feels like home in His gaze. Everything about Him oozes peace and joy and there just isn’t a way, that I’m aware of, to describe the level of intimacy.

I have intimacy with my husband, with my best friend, with my mother and with my kids. All of these people see me from their own viewpoint. And there are others who see me from even different viewpoints still. Each has their own experience with me and so have their own unique perspectives: their own view. He has every view from all angles and it is good.

You know that expression people have when they have a surprise or really wonderful news no one else knows yet? That’s what He looks like, and then some. Like the cat who swallowed the canary.

Something’s on His mind, and I can tell it’s going to be amazing: the kind of good that changes everything.

So He leans in, and He says to me, “I have an offer for you.”

“Ok,” I respond expectantly; because everything from Him is better than I could imagine. So I’m already feeling the assurance that I’m going to like what He has to say.

“I’m going to hand pick someone special for you. I’ve designed him and set him apart to be your earthly dad. He will raise you, along with your mother and love you with all his heart. There are special talents and unique gifts I’m giving him that will be passed on to you. Those gifts are priceless; and you can only receive them from him. They will be parts of you that help fulfill who I’ve called you to be. You’ll have a wonderful relationship with him. There will be good and there will also be bad, but you will love him with a love that gives you joy, and security. That, in itself, will help you learn about My love.

He’s a gift from me to you.

However, this gift won’t be yours on earth for the duration of time in which you are there.

You will have this gift for thirty-four earthly years. This gift won’t last any longer than that. Would you like this thirty-four year gift?”

Wow! Thirty-four years. A thirty-four year gift sounds pretty amazing. Most gifts are much more brief.

“Most definitely! I will take that gift!” I exclaimed.

He continued, “You must know that even though you will be having this gift thirty-four years, you will feel robbed upon its end. It will be very, very hard, and you will fight as intensely as you know how, to keep the end from coming. And then, my beloved, you will grieve. Your sorrow will be great. But you will not be alone. I’ll be there with you, and My comfort will surround you, and fill you, as I mend your broken heart. My comfort will be exactly what you need to heal as long as you open yourself up to receive the fullness of it.”

“I want it,” I told Him. “I want that gift,” I decide definitively, desiring the blessing in spite of the suffering. And I trust my Heavenly Father to fulfill His promise of healing and comfort. I trust Him.

“There’s more,” He said. “I have other gifts for you as well.”

“Okay?” I question.

“Would you be interested in another gift?”

My curiosity is sparked.

“This one you will never meet in your earthly life. However you will know that I used a part of you and a part of Chad to create a life that is so very precious to Me. This gift is a child who will receive the miracle of life inside your womb. Without your womb this life will not be. However, you won’t have the earthly benefit of knowing this child. But this child will have the heavenly benefit of never knowing separation from Me.

When your time on earth comes to an end, you will be able to meet my beloved creation, whom I created through you and Chad; a little bit of each of you. Then the rest of eternity will be before you. Once again, you will feel loss. You will grieve. And again, you will not be alone in your heartache. I’ll be with you. Would you like this gift?”

What an honor to be chosen by Him for this role. Life was going to be spoken into me. Part of God’s eternal plan was going to bud inside my body. I started to think of the treasured little Heavenly life who God designed to be a part of eternity, and I sat dismayed that He would choose Chad and I. Who are we to get to experience such a miracle?

My imagination took me to thoughts of the time when I get to enter Heaven. It will feel like my family is growing as I enter into a place where my child, His child, will be greeting me for the very first time. Excitement filled me as I envisioned what God has in store.

Surprisingly, this is a no-brainer for me. From a different place and time, my perspective on having a miscarriage was totally different. But presented to me by the heart of my Father, who is Himself love, it is something else entirely. A wonderful, miraculous, and heavenly gift.

And I do choose to receive it. I know it sounds crazy and backward from our limited understanding, but I eagerly desire it. Instead of feeling robbed, I feel … chosen. In fact, I know and am assured that Chad and I are chosen.

This lean-in, eye-to-eye, heart-to-heart chat continues on. There is so much more to discuss.

He presents me with many more gifts. Each and every one of them offered to me from His beautiful viewpoint. Yet, you must know that some of them were what I had previously considered (in a different time and place) loss and pain in my life.

The perspective of the Gift-giver brought me to a place where I would say “yes” to all of them.

Having His perspective is more than seeing the cup half-full or having a positive attitude. Those ideas come from within us, and are things we have to work on or conjure up within ourselves, having ourselves as our source. In fact sometimes we choose to be positive with our words while inside, in the innermost part of us, we feel dead.

Why is that?

It’s because true healing and wholeness, and abundant life don’t come from choosing our own knowledge of positive (or good), or us not choosing bad. Remember, we were told not to eat from that tree.

Healing comes from the Healer, and comfort from the Comforter. What changes us, and blows our ideas of “positive” totally out of the water is the perspective of Life. The perspective of Love. The perspective of Truth. These cannot be confined to the limitations of our experience. Our knowledge, even our knowledge of God, is inferior to the reality of Him and His viewpoint.

And the beautiful part of this is that He wants to share it with you and with me. He designed us to feast on the fruit of this Tree. His desire has always been there, but we so often have hidden from that penetrating gaze.

So what about you?

Would you be willing to sit with the Giver of every good and perfect gift? As you are here right now reading, what is the Holy Spirit bringing to your mind? Can you imagine your gaze in His as He offers you His perspective? Could there possibly be a gift in your pain? Will you allow Him to reveal it to you?

And will you choose to receive it?

Sit with Him awhile. It’ll feel like home.

To comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion –

To bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes

The oil of gladness instead of mourning

The garment of praise instead of the spirit of despair

Isaiah 61

Angela Huntley

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