I cried this morning. A lot. I felt it building up even during a praise and worship service I'm usually so quick to judge. It's true. God can penetrate this stubborn heart.

The band started to play "How Great Thou Art" and that was when I finally let the tears flow. Ever since my dad's father died seven or eight years ago, I weep when I hear that song and really listen to it. My grandfather drowned his life away in booze, and my dad suffered the consequences. At my grandfather's funeral, I had to watch my father, whose scars could not have been more evident, stand up and give the eulogy for the man he had every reason to hate. I heard him suck back his pain with a gasping breath, and I saw him try to hide his tears within the confines of untouched memories.

But I cried. I couldn't look at him. My cousin Amanda proceeded to sing "How Great Thou Art," and I kept weeping silently. I didn't know my grandfather, but I was raised by his oldest son, the man who made it his desperate and consistent goal to make sure his daughters felt loved and secured in ways that he only ever dreamed as a child when he laid lost and alone in his bed every night. I'm crying now just thinking about it and typing it all out. If there's any time I feel truly unworthy, it's when I think about this unknown past of my father.

And I wonder what to do with that. Pastor Mike had us look up Isaiah 61:1 this morning.

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound.

And I thought of the man who did that for my dad--the one who pulled him aside after baseball practice and invited him to church. And I thought of my dad going to seminary. And my dad preaching for years and continuing in a role of spiritual leadership at my church. I think of the the wealth of knowledge and the wisdom my dad has, yet how humbly he nurtures and wields it. I don't know that I would have ever had a chance of being born had it not been for the good news being brought to my father. He might have decided to end it all and put himself out of his misery.

He needed the hope that is found in the love and mercy of Jesus. That very hope I take advantage of almost every single day of my life. The one I sometimes think I don't need, and without it I glance over Isaiah 61:1 without an ounce of love or compassion. I feel ill thinking about how happily I neglect matters of the heart, and I feel stupid knowing that I do it in the name of "reason."

I am without. There is still greater love that I cannot understand.