there was a day in Rome...

08/25/2010


I’m not even sure how to go about describing this day.  I am so overcome by promise, life, and grace. 

I started the morning off by reading through Romans while I sat on a couch in Rome.  As soon as I got out of the cab in front of the Colosseum my throat felt tight, my heart beat faster, and my breath came in uneven spurts.  Such was the emotions throwing themselves about in me that I literally started to feel dizzy.  How odd to stand in a line at a time like that.  Such an ordinary action seemed so out of place to me.  I fought for control of emotions and beating heart and stood in a line in the most ordinary way in a most extraordinary place. 

Up two flights of stairs feeling as if almost every stone was speaking of the past.  Who had reached out to these stones to steady themselves in days past?  I walked through the arch and saw it.  Here before my eyes was the stadium.  I made my way to the front of the fence.  I looked down and my stomach flipped.  So many lives had met their earthy end here.  As I backed away to make room for the other tourists I looked to my right and marveled at the wall towering above me.  I thought of how dwarfed I felt by the high walls.  I began to wonder about how I would feel if those walls dwarfed me still, but housed within them there were thousands of people who were sitting back to watch my destruction. 

Suddenly there was this replay of history before my eyes.  The roar of an angry crowd, the heat beating down, hands bereft of weapon and wild beast beside me. 

Why aren’t there benches in the Colosseum so you can sit down and weep? 

I was so assaulted by the idea I even felt some real terror for a moment.  I looked over the far wall, the sun beams were streaming strongly down.  Oh sweet truth and comfort washed over my aching soul!! 

Here my family suffered great earthy loss.  But it was merely earthly.  Those who so unimaginably bravely went before me have found everlasting gain.  The heavenly triumph dwarfs the earthly loss and suffering far more than this stone façade did my form. 

But of course what thoughts followed all this but overwhelming desire for the faith so strong, for the trust so complete, for assurance that makes one so brave. 

"Heart!” I cried within, “Increase in these!” 

Brothers and sisters here in this very place stood and endured, to their end, the assaults of others’ unbelief and ridicule.  It IS possible to have so much of His heart that the roaring lion be far from persuading you to abandon your place in the kingdom. 

May it be so with me.