A Masquerade Moment
Love that will not let you go
I am having a “Masquerade Moment,” as I’ve decided to call it. I wrote about this years ago in my blog here. I told the story my sister told me, where she noticed that each time she came near my dad, he was singing, “…this masquerade…” and apparently, those were the only words he knew of that song. As I reread what I wrote, I realized there are likely many who read this who do not know that song, so here it is:
I love this story because it often happens to me—where a song is stuck in my mind, and I only know a few words. So…my “Masquerade Moment” story is this: If ideas for my blog come to me, it is my habit to email myself words of what I’m thinking or links to what I’ve read as little reminders to myself, then I put them into a folder in my mailbox. When considering what to write for my next blog entry, I often read through the messages in the folder. I had one that said “love that will not let me go” in the subject line. I’m not sure what I thought when I wrote the message, but when I read it, a song immediately got stuck in my head, and I only knew a small portion. For the past day or so, I’ve been singing, “Oh, love that will not let me go.”
When I learned the song as a child, it was a very sing-songy, “happy-clappy” song, like the one below, and that is the way I’ve been singing it in my head:
When I searched for it on YouTube and Spotify, I noticed that there are now many meditative, slow versions, like the one below. I appreciate that slowing down makes you hear the words and think about them more. I like those versions, but probably because I learned the fast, sing-songy version first, that’s what comes to my mind.
I decided to write about this to you today to remind you that God’s love will not let you go. Isn’t that great? I think of the scenes in movies where someone is about to fall off a cliff or jump off a building, and there’s a suspenseful scene showing the hands of the rescuer and the person falling, reaching, reaching, and then connecting. Often, the rescuer is saying, “Hold on! Hold on! I won’t let you go!” Not only does God rescue us that way, he never lets us go.
For me, that never-ending love is a foundation for my life. When all else seems awful, hopeless, or unendurable, I know—I KNOW—God’s love will not let me go. And I pray you know that, too. No matter who you are, what you have done, what has happened, where you are—God’s love will not let you go.
For I am convinced [I know-note from Mavis] that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. ~Romans 8:38, 39