Magical Love

 

A middle-aged man walks into his home after a tiresome rainy day at work. He notices that his daughter is curled up in the corner as she reads a book. He wonders what she reads about until he recognizes it’s her history text book. He is pleased to see her interested in studies, but his pleasure soon turns into worry. He drops his bag of tools by the door he has already shut. He takes the towel within his reach to wipe himself dry. He wonders about his wife for a moment, but rest alludes him as he perceives a draft blowing the curtains.He coughs into his fist as he walks into his bedroom. He scavenges through the linen and sighs as he grabs a blanket with both hands. In a bid to unfold it, he swings it around as he turns to leave the room. By the time he reaches his daughter she is about to turn the page. He heaves and swings the blanket around her shoulders and lets it cover her cold body. Her eyes immediately meet his and she smiles at his benevolence. She drops the book at her side and holds the edges of the blanket finding comfort in the warmth.  She smiles gratefully at her father and then puts her hand out as if asking for a hug. No words escape their lips, yet communication never ceases. He bends down to hug his little girl as she whispers, “I love you, dada”. He smiles as his chin rests on her shoulder. He can’t see her face for a moment, but the exchange of emotion is enough, enough to make his day.

He holds her beautiful face in his hands and he decides out loud, “You continue your studies, I will bring you a hot chocolate”. She grins at the announcement and nods her head in agreement. He lets his hands slip off her soft face as he raises himself determined to move the world to comfort her.  Entering the kitchen, he meets his wife. Her smile is welcoming. He moves forth to kiss her cheek and she stays poised to receive it. Then he turns to announce, “I’m making Ela some hot chocolate”. She replies, “I’m already brewing her some hot chicken soup”. He replies almost immediately, “It’s a deluge out there, I hope you have some for yourself as well”. She smiles and replies as her hand continues to stir the pot, “There will be more than enough for Ela and me even after I serve you two portions”. He smiles back at her as he waits for the water to simmer, then replies, “That will be lovely, I got some warm bread from the baker, its in the living room”. She darts out to collect the bread as she notices Ela in the blanket. She bends down to check on her daughter holding the bread to her breast in one arm. Feeling her forehead she shares, “God bless you are not running a fever, did dada give you a blanket?” She nods and smiles, “Yes” and then she returns to her reading as her mother re enter the kitchen. Her husband was already stirring the cup as she placed the bread on the table. She goes back to brewing her soup as he moves towards his daughter clutching the warm cup in his tired hands.

Love is not for grabbing; it is born within and it must flow outwards. Love cannot be rented nor purchased, for it was meant to be given freely and abundantly. We cannot put a price on love or think that we must receive it in exchange of riches. We have been inspired through the spirit that we must first love and then only can we receive it. And yet, many a times we may find ourselves looking at emptiness when we perceive the time to collect.

The love that a father feels for his child, has been inspired by the love that God has for his creation. It is because He loves us that we are able to love our children. For just as the Almighty Father forgets his displeasure in our sins to comfort and feed us, so in the same way, a worldly father forgets about his exhaustion and his hard day at labour when he notices his child’s discomfort.

It is in his child’s gratitude and in his child’s happiness that he finds the pleasure for his heart. It is in his child’s success and his child’s enthusiasm at work that he will find solace. And when his child unites with a worthy life partner, it is then that a father will find peace in eternal rest. However, worldly and temporary these examples may seem, yet it is in such that humans seek everlasting peace. However, the Almighty Father has better and greater gifts in store for His children. He has a teaching that will inspire a human to enjoy peace in this life as well as be assured peace in eternity. But just as the price for receiving human love is conditional, so also God’s promise for everlasting peace has simple conditions.

Sin violates the journey to eternal peace because sin has its own path. The paths of righteousness and sinfulness overlap each other, but they are not entwined and they never meet. As there are levels of righteousness, there are also levels of sinfulness. Then more we indulge in one, more we move away from the other.Yet, living life in vanity and calculated charity is a path that neither leads to righteousness nor leads to destruction. Such a life glides to yield the sweetness of both paths. For a child of such goodness and vanity, God seeks the heart for intentions and measures the heart for desire. Then, before the evil one can stake claim for the sinfulness in vanity, God begins purification of the soul through simple bouts of suffering. These bouts of suffering may last until the purification instills a change in heart and a change in mind to distance ourselves from vanity and calculated charity. In the spiritual realm, the soul is priceless and while evil continue to plunder the world with deceit, greed and selfishness, God made a decisive plan that mercy would be His greatest instrument for cleansing souls of  sin and worldly impurity.

A trader finds himself trapped in a discussion over groceries that have been supplied to his store and the amount that he has been billed for it. He is enraged at the audacity that the delivery staff of his supplier display while he feels cheated by the distributor. There must be something wrong in the scripting of the delivery slips. He holds in his hand three memos that describe his purchase for the month and the delivery boy displays four memos attached to a consolidated bill. He rummages through his desk and in his drawer once again. He flips through the pages of a folder where he has filed the memos of every delivery made by various distributors. He goes through the dates mentioned in the memos attached to the bill until he finds the discrepancy. The third memo handed over by the delivery boy is dated for a Sunday. But the trader never works on a Sunday, his shop is always closed on a Sunday. It was a decision he had made twenty-five years ago that saved him this day; six days a week he dedicated to his business and the seventh day he dedicated to entertain his family with recreational activities. True to his character he dials the distributor’s contact number and waits. Within a minute they exchange opinions and he makes the discrepancy known to the distributor. He is asked to hold on to the call while verifications are being made. The delivery boy stands his ground unable to display his impatience. He is at the mercy of his employer and the customer in sight. As the wait extends by another minute, the trader is asked to hold on for another minute. A homeless beggar wearing a ragged and dirty turban appears in the midst of the tense moment. He has a long unkempt beard and his clothes smell rancid. He pleads with the supplier’s staff who wave him away displaying their frustration. The beggar covers his face with his arm as he stumbles sideways. He turns to the trader and pleads with folded hands. The trader continues to wait attentively at the phone but makes enough time to ask the beggar to wait for a couple of minutes until he can sort out the mess. The beggar bows a little with a tiny smile of newly found hope. The call ends as the delivery boys receive a call instructing them to bring back the bill for rectification. The paper work exchanges hands as the trader’s workers begin to handle the fresh stock. The trader turns his attention towards the beggar. They exchange kind words and greetings as they bless each other. The trader fills fruits, bread and some groceries into polyethene bag and hands it over to the beggar. The beneficiary lacks words to express his gratitude. There are only tears flowing down his face. The trader accepts nothing more than gratitude for charity was a trait taught be his father.

God declares Himself as a Father and He has made the earth our mother. From dust we were created and to dust will we return. God has made his creation, the people who He created from dust, to be pro-creators of our offspring and through our bodies He continues to bring forth life and sustain this world for oursake and His Glory. He is an Almighty God, but not to people of any specific religion.Instead, he is the Almighty God of all that He has created and He becomes a Father to all those who dare to live as His children.God’s fundamental Fatherly command is that we live sharing in His love and to love as He loves.

He calls us to be patient in our love and to be hopeful in His love. He calls us to live building trust for it is in love that trust is forged. It is in patience that relationships are strengthened and it is in giving abundantly that we can give hope any justice. Charity is a character that must weigh us down, for when we give within our comfort, we are actually investing. But when we display benevolence to the extent of our beneficiary’s comfort, then only can we truly be charitable.

For God gives us mercy that is unfathomable and he is willing to forgive even the worse sinfulness at the behest of true sincere repentance. In the Book of Revelations St. John prophesied that the Lord will imprison the evil one for a thousand years in a bottomless pit, before setting him free for a while and only after the great war between good and evil at Armageddon will God send the devil to his destruction in the second death. It is but obvious that God has already foretold, that he is willing to show mercy even unto the devil and He is willing to offer even the devil a chance to repent for his sinfulness.