Constance…when I hear my blessed Mama living in the music of Her children as they sing, I burst into tears…literally every time. When Precious Jesus is inhabiting the praise of His peoples, I cannot help the tears of joy that simply jump out of my heart and stream tangible baptisms of gratitude, and flowing fountains of inexpressible and unutterable thankfulness that The Lord has had mercy on me, this broken and alienated stranger in a strange land.
Even as a small child, this happened to me…and then I was ashamed, because boys don’t cry. I always cried!!
Oh, it just feels sooo good to let my heart overflow and offer Him my own soul’s inner waters out from my eyes.
It doesn’t happen to me everytime I hear a worship song, or every time I hear a hymn, or sing even…but there are those times…if you were lucky enough to be in a church that wasn’t so freaking oppressive that Mama simply looked on from a distance, silently, Her incredible generous and compassionate essence quenched by the soul-stealing stench of pride and haughtiness…then you know that moment I am talking about. Something just…changes! The ceilings are gone…the floors are gone…horizons expand, and suddenly you know…you. know. That God is alive, and love. That you are alive and loved.
As a small child, as a teen, and as a young adult, these times would happen, and I would hide myself away in Them, snuggled down my tearful face buried deep in Their side, and I would breathe my thankful utterances that in this awful and desolate land that I was sentenced to dwell in until I died, through no request or doing of my own was I born and then born a prisoner…I would tell them…Oh Lovely Lovely Shepherd (for that is who I talked to then, to Jesus the Good Shepherd who left the 99 and came to get me…Jesus the compassionate who had mercy on the prostitute caught in the act of adultery…Jesus the Healer who felt the touch of faith’s heart at the hem of His garment in the throng of thousands of grabby greedy desperate hands)…Oh Wondrous Shepherd of my soul…if I can have my sentence of life in prison punctuated and pierced by these moments of furlough and reprieve, however brief…then I will follow You always. I promise and do so choose forever, come what may.
And then I would often weep all night long…literally…draining out the sorrow, the self-loathing and the shame and despite for my awful awful self…I would pour out my thankfulness that even to a wretch like me They would draw nigh and commune with me…even humble Themselves to TOUCH me!
And They were faithful to be there…
And They were faithful to continually work over me, labor over me, in the womb of my imprisonment and dysphoria to ready me for birth…and when labor began They went silent, for the pangs and contractions had to be strong, had to be ultimate, had to take me past my limits. Well, they did that, and I came home finally, came out finally to live and be born…
and the moments resumed, commenced once again.
Now? Oh. My. God. Mama took me under Her wing, and has been teaching me, Her tongue a good Theme.
So I would ask you to give the vid a shot, for at minimum you can hear the soundtrack that played while I bawled in utter thankfulness and total gratitude for life, for Life.
And at the maximum? Have some tissues on the by!
Love and Grace be unto you in the richest most lavish extreme…
Charissa Grace the Grateful Girl forever
Charissa's Grace Notes 
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