I see.

“Amazing grace! how sweet the sound, That saved a wretch; like me!

I once was lost, but now am found,  Was blind, but now I see.”

– John Newton 

This hymn swells my heart, fills my soul and wells up my eyes with true gratitude.  Speaks to the twin blessings of both a divine and self forgiveness.  How the sense of being saved rings true in a new found presence for life. 

Whatever the source of one’s  wretchedness,  state of sin, spiritual need, distress or desperate need for rescue and redemption, His presence, love  and loop of grace leads one to a saving source of repentance.  Bringing forth an entirely different sensory affirmation of life in the world about us.  An unmistakable melody of gratitude heightened by a new found vision. 

Being lost is an orientation far more than simply geographical.  It may not be readily apparent from an external perspective.  But internalized, it can assume  an excruciatingly  painful and perilously winding nature, replete with false starts, stops and changes in direction.  Dishonesty, self righteousness and a self absorbing sense of ego leads one to isolation and a perpetual nonexistence.  Being present, engaged and invested are exchanged for absence, disconnection and apathy.  

With renewed vision and a truer recognition of this existence  born of His grace, that blindness gives way to an awareness of life and all it is meant to be.  That loop born of His mercy for you  is such that when you witness and receive  it for yourself, you cannot help but to embrace the thoughts, words and deeds that can be freely given to those around you, so they might too  live it for themselves.  

Given the circumstances of the author of this replenishing hymn and that of the author of this post, we can all enslave others or enslave ourselves by and through sin.  No matter our origin, that we all share in common.  That is what gives us our original nature.

And as such, He encircles us with true redemption through grace in a heavenly embrace.  A gift that once received that is intended to be given back.  Not in terms of or in the form of a transaction. But just as freely as we ourselves were compensated as such. As a gift.

So that we all may know the sweetness of its sound.  And follow its path leading our way back into His light.  

Was truly blind.  

But now?

I see.