Indescribable

Indescribable

            Have you ever experienced something so intense that you cannot find the words from the English (or any other)  language that appropriately describes it? It can be a positive experience, like the birth of a child or one that causes you grief, like the loss of that child.

            Love and joy can also be two of those indescribable experiences.

            The other day I stopped in at my daughter’s house and her two year old came running. If you are a grandparent you know there is nothing more wonderful than the sound of that “Gramma!” and the feel of those chubby little arms around your neck. It makes you feel indescribable love and joy.

            On that day I could tell Miss Natalie was as excited to see me as I was to see her, (did I mention how much I love that?) and wanted to express it.  But you could tell she didn’t know how to do that even though she talks more than any two year old I have ever known. So she stroked my hair and said “I like your hair.” They she poked her fingers into my eyes and said, “I like your eyes.” She touched my cheeks and said, “I like your cheeks.” And then because she was just so overwhelmed with love, she said “I like your arms!” My arms?  Have you ever seen the arms of a slightly overweight sixty year old woman? I know, I should try lifting something heavier than a doughnut.

            I was then so overwhelmed by her expressions of love that all I could do is kiss her all over her chubby little face. 

            The Bible speaks of indescribable love and joy.

            John 3:16 tells us that God loved us so much that He gave his one and only Son. Why wouldn’t it have been enough for him to just tell us? Was it possible there were no words in even His language that would have made us understand it? So He did the unimaginable and showed us in the most sacrificial way?

            And yet so many of us still cannot comprehend that kind of love. But it is possible; maybe not in our limited minds but in our hearts that were created, first and foremost to love him.

            I Peter 1:8 tell us “Though you have not seen Him, you love Him; and even though you do not see Him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy.”

            When I asked Google how many words there are in the English language it told me that there are, at the least, a quarter of a million distinct English words.

            250,000 words, and the love and joy we can have for our heavenly Father are still inexpressible because they are indescribable.   That is so…………..I can’t  think of a word that describes that.

© Brenda J.Young 2012