Monday, October 23, 2017
Sunday, October 22, 2017
I Love You
Saying “I love you” has become so cheap. I love ice cream. I love going on vacation. I love puppies. But what does love really mean? The love that my soul cries out for, the love I was created for. What is it?
Here are my observations and my paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 13:
God showed me today. I sat down to have my time with Him as I do every morning and we opened up the Word and went to 1 Corinthians 13. First, we see that there are several types of love. Eros is the erotic, sensual love. It’s romantic and full of emotion. Storge refers to family love, like between parent and child. Philia speaks of affection and friendship, probably the highest level of love that man on his own is capable of. Me? I want that agape love. A love that is unchanging, unconditional. I want God to love this agape love through me because I’m sure not able on my own.
Love is not a feeling but more of an action.
It means I choose you.
I am set on you.
I endure with you, for you.
I will serve you.
I won’t bubble over or blow up when I get angry.
I won’t be a show-off who needs attention, or a proud puffed-up arrogant creep.
I won’t demand my own way.
I won’t try to make you angry.
I won’t count up and hold onto all of the wrongs committed against me and cling to the hurt.
Instead I will share in God’s grace with you, His grace that extends to both of us.
I will endure in every condition, be confident in every situation, actively wait for God’s fulfillment in every moment, and remain steadfast in God‘s power.
Never will I walk away.
Never will I allow this to end, because I choose you.
That is what Jesus does for me and when I say “I love you”, that is my choice for you.
How grateful I am that God doesn’t waste anything, even when I do my best to mess it up. And He began it all by reminding me of how He loves me, by painting the picture of 1 Corinthians 13. Slowly, steadily, He’s transforming me from the inside out, teaching me how to live, how to love.
I love you. It’s more than just words...
Friday, October 20, 2017
Enough
I keep telling myself that maybe I’ll do this thing again one of these days. I’ve always loved writing. It’s kind of like painting a self portrait with words.
But then along came THAT day, and words left me. I was a quivering broken mass on the living room floor, unsure of which end was up, what was true, who I could trust. I thought I had known it all, but as it turned out...I knew nothing.
I had to all start again from square one. There were no instructions. There was no road map. There were no guarantees. Just building blocks while someone else kicked them down over and over again. Just digging out a hole while someone kept piling more dirt in. Just trying to heal a wound while someone kept ripping open the scab. Square one. Again and again.
Will I ever forget that suffocating pain? Will I ever get past the dark loneliness that engulfed me? The hopeless helplessness of not knowing truth, of realizing much of my life and what I had counted on were in fact lies and deception. I had been a fool. A rejected and despised fool. Anger. Agony. Betrayal. Death. I experienced it all. Again and again.
If that were all of the story, it would be really a crappy read. What I found was the glimmer of light in the darkness, the tiny shoot of growth in the burned field. What I was shown was a different perspective, a different way of thinking. My nose was rubbed in the dark facts of the circumstances surrounding me, but God had a deeper truth for me to see. Facts are not always truth. Truth is not always easy to see, especially when your heart is wounded and you’re blinded by grief.
The truth? What was meant for destruction and death actually became a rebirth. What had seemingly been broken beyond repair still had this tiny sliver of life holding the two pieces together. Impossible life surrounded by certain death. But it was there.
The deepest truth? God was there. In the midst of the rubble. In the darkness of night. Whispering His
love to me, asking me to trust Him, promising to teach me and guide me in each step of the uncertain journey ahead. His hands were that of a surgeon, cutting out the poison that threatened to kill me, bringing healing to a damaged soul, life to a walking dead. Daily. Moment by moment. Repetition. Over and over. Again and again.
That became enough.
But then along came THAT day, and words left me. I was a quivering broken mass on the living room floor, unsure of which end was up, what was true, who I could trust. I thought I had known it all, but as it turned out...I knew nothing.
I had to all start again from square one. There were no instructions. There was no road map. There were no guarantees. Just building blocks while someone else kicked them down over and over again. Just digging out a hole while someone kept piling more dirt in. Just trying to heal a wound while someone kept ripping open the scab. Square one. Again and again.
If that were all of the story, it would be really a crappy read. What I found was the glimmer of light in the darkness, the tiny shoot of growth in the burned field. What I was shown was a different perspective, a different way of thinking. My nose was rubbed in the dark facts of the circumstances surrounding me, but God had a deeper truth for me to see. Facts are not always truth. Truth is not always easy to see, especially when your heart is wounded and you’re blinded by grief.
The truth? What was meant for destruction and death actually became a rebirth. What had seemingly been broken beyond repair still had this tiny sliver of life holding the two pieces together. Impossible life surrounded by certain death. But it was there.
The deepest truth? God was there. In the midst of the rubble. In the darkness of night. Whispering His
That became enough.
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