For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams Of the beautiful Annabel Lee

 I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge — that you may be filled with the fullness of God. Ephesians 3: 16-19

I know this prayer.  There was a year, Andrea and Dustin’s seventh grade year at Grace, that I prayed it every single morning over each of those names printed in the green spiral gradebook.  One by one.  

And the verse was tacked up on the bulletin board behind my desk, so as I strode and leapt through that beige-carpeted, beige-walled shaky trailer-room, I could glance at it from the corner of my eye and remember what was important.  

What does it mean to be rooted and established in love?  And can a prayer stretch into a lifetime, this being able to grasp the deep, deep love of Christ?

And every morning I drive by that same trailer-room, parked next to an empty lot.   It’s boarded up now, the windows, with plywood.  Weeds flourish underneath its shade.  The outside walls are weather-stained and it probably leaks.  It is clear that some things do not have lasting value. And beyond memorizing 54 prepositions and diagramming sentences and learning that “a lot” is two words and the Highwayman came riding, riding and Injun Joe bounding out of the closet at poor old Tom and Becky holding a lit candlestick even though it broke fire code because I made sure that it didn't set off the alarm what happened that year?  Do those kids bound up in the throes of middle-school angst know how tightly my heart was twisted up with theirs?

I know.  

And the seed was sown in soil well-tilled by many loving hands.  And I AM the LORD of the harvest.  And My will shall prevail, though wind and drought and pestilence do seek to destroy, My love wins, this love that surpasses knowledge, so wide, so long, so high, and so deep.

Glory.