This Period at the End of Every Worrisome Thought

I am methodical to an obsessive degree. I always start in the same place to clean house (which is unfortunate for the ending places that never seem to get touched.) I hang all shirts facing left on the hanger –top button buttoned. I always walk the same path around the neighborhood. My morning routine remains unaltered –shower, dress, teeth, makeup, hair, lotion.

I go at my problems methodically as well –thinking through them from start to finish over and over again.

This might make my husband crazy.

I passed the morning on my normal mental path. The boys were gone, so I sat on the couch with Bible and coffee. Praying, reading, thinking. Meticulously laboring through every area of life.

But over the last few weeks I have been reading an online Bible study about God’s love for us. So this morning when I got to the end of my thought path, the Lord said, I love you. Do you remember that I love you?

This is a good ending place for my always tumultuous thinking –the love of God.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  (John 3:16 NIV)

How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!  (1 John 3:1 NIV)

…this love that surpasses knowledge…  (Ephesians 3:19)

My relationships are not perfect, and I have not been perfect within them.

But God loves me.

I do not know how to serve the Lord well, and I often wonder if I am doing all he wants me to do.

But he loves me.

The ability to control my tongue seems out of reach.

But God loves me.

As a language teacher, I put sentences together. I think about good paragraphs –how they should start and how they should end. I take off points when my students don’t finish a sentence with punctuation. This annoys students, but end punctuation is an important detail in communication.

A period tells us when to breathe.

So whatever your sentences are, the worrying ones, finish them well.