Tim Keller would give his Sunday morning talk/sermon at NYC’s Hunter College and then, after a brief auditorium emptying, Tim would have a question and answer session on his talk. ( this was the mid 90’s …or so- time blends )
Normally, I didn’t go to those Q and A sessions. But that day Tim subject was “Love” and his text the book of Hosea.
This was the first book of the Bible I ever studied, and I read it with a mentor while separated from my wife of seven years. This was my introduction to Christianity. I do not recommend Hosea as a spiritual beginning. It is a hard, difficult read for a person whose marriage is failing due to unfaithfulness.
Tim Keller is always an ‘A’ teacher. He is concise and insightful at the same time. He knows. And he was very good that day.
But now very happily re-married 15 years after that difficult time, the topic and my response surprised me. I wanted now to go back in time and ask one essential personal question of Hosea:
Hosea, can you, could you be able to love again? Could you after Gomer’s deceits love her or another again? How would such a return to love be possible?
So I sat in Hunter’s auditorium as Priscilla went to another Sunday School class toward the mid section. I was in the next to last row of people.
I waited and midway through I asked Tim by question, how can one who had been deeply hurt love again?
I had to go forward to the front to ask the question and as I returned to my seat, a young woman who looked as though she could be a model, touched my shoulder from her seat behind me and simply said ‘thank you.’
Tim had paused. He started talking about Star Trek and force shields. Then he paused again and said that he was speaking about Star Trek till he came up with a response,
In a few minutes he did. But it was that young woman’s touch and words that was and is my answer.
As attractive as she was, she was deeply hurting also. She needed to hear that her hurt had meaning, weight, gravitas. All hurts do with Him, with our all loving Saviour m, Jesus.
That she, her hurt mattered. And that she wasn’t alone,
Tim’s response to my question I will post Saturday 18 July 2020.
But God answered my question with a touch and a ‘thank you.’
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