The Grace Box

Something touched my hand. I hadn’t meant to fall asleep in the chair, but the glow from the Christmas tree and the soft instrumental carols were like a sugar-plumb Ambien. I picked my head up to see who had disturbed my long winter’s nap, but I was alone.

Then I saw it (or felt it?). At the base of the tree was a small wooden chest, the size of a cigar box. I picked it up. It wasn’t heavy, but it was solid. The wood was stained dark red, and was inlaid all over with painted tiles. At first I thought it was for jewelry or other valuables, but there was no lock, and the tiles were like nothing I’d ever seen. They were intensely beautiful- land, sea, and skyscapes that…moved.

I blinked hard, thinking my eyes were not quite awake yet, but it didn’t help. Every scene was a window on a different part of creation, from the desert, to the ocean, to the mountains. The longer I stared at one, the more I were drawn into it, until I was there, a part of the living art. After spending some time getting lost in the pictures, I began to wonder- if the outside was this beautiful and fantastic, what about the inside? Nervously, I touched the lid’s latch. Nothing could hurt me in my own dream, could it? I reasoned that I must be dreaming, after all, that I was still sleeping in the chair. But the more I looked at the box, the more real it felt. My heart was beating so hard I could hear it. I took a deep breath. Half-terrified and half-exhilarated, I opened it.

Nothing. I don’t mean it was empty. I was gazing into infinite space, like staring at a dark part of the sky on a moonless night. As with the outside, it drew you in. But this was harder to pull back from. There was an odd sensation of falling, yet being perfectly at peace. Surrounded in that contentment, I let myself drift in silence. Then a voice.

I say voice, but it wasn’t language as I knew it. It was more- images and emotion and thought, both to me and through me. Every cell in me reverberated with it, like standing under a massive waterfall. There was nothing in my mind I could hide, and nothing I could keep from coming in. I’m not sure how long that went on before I began to be aware of certain thought-feeling-memories rising above the rest.

These were difficult. Painful. These were the moments of my life that didn’t make sense. Broken relationships. Overwhelming circumstances. Rejections. Failures. Deaths. I saw the lymphoma. The mass in my chest was vivid, an alien winding its tentacles around my heart, trying to strangle the life out of me. Above all this, one word appeared.
Why.

I couldn’t conceal my deep desire to know why these things happened. No, not desire. Offense. Bitterness. I didn’t realize how angry I was at the suffering I had seen so many go through, and how badly I wanted to know why. Why are there evil men who destroy lives and get paid for it, while children die of cancer. For that matter, why did I get it? What did I do wrong?

The images shifted around me again. I saw larger versions of the outside of the box, sweeping panoramas of nations and cities and people. There was more this time though. I could feel God’s connection to creation, His presence energizing every good thing. There was no shadow in Him, no intent to punish anyone, not one thought of sacrificing one person in favor of another. I could feel His love for every soul, and His desire to give each person what he or she needed to become all that He saw they could be. The awareness of His love and goodness grew until I physically and emotionally couldn’t take anymore, and I collapsed in the chair.

He spoke this time in a way I could receive more easily, more like a whisper: “My son, I have made atoms and galaxies. I designed both lions and lion fish. I created you. I know you better than you know yourself, and I understand that you have questions. It’s true that some things don’t seem to make sense. But there are many things that you simply can’t understand right now. So I’m asking you to have faith in who I am. What you felt was barely the beginning of My love; I’m asking you to look for that love in all your circumstances, and trust Me in it. The box I have given you is for your questions. It’s not locked- it isn’t to stuff your feelings down and pretend they don’t exist. It is made of My grace, and therefore has more than enough room for you to put things in that you can’t understand right now. Someday we will sit down and talk about them all. But for now, will you trust that I love you and want you to thrive? Will you allow My grace to hold your questions, and at the same time empower you to become all that I see in you?”

All my bitterness, pain, and fear got swallowed up as He spoke. I nodded slightly, too weak to say anything. I could feel Him standing next to me, strengthening me, healing me, loving me. He held my hand.