It's been awhile since I last wrote...lots has happened, but I think my internet is finally not having issues. It has been a hard week for me, lots of minidrama, and below the belt spiritual attacks and suffice it to say I've cried four or five times, and lost my keys once. For those of you who know me, that is a fairly large deal.
Tonight, though I was blessed by a spiritual love tap, reminding me how much God loves me, and that got me to thinking of love in general...what it means and why we do it. You see, not only have I been having a rough week, but those I consider family, that is to say my dear friends have also been having rough moments and rough weeks. Earlier today I was trying to figure out what I could possibly say to help comfort one of my friends and the most recent surprise...and found myself laughing at myself...in a somewhat hysterical sense...I had/have absolutely nothing. Sometimes life is just hard, plain, simple, brutal and sharp.
But at least twice this week I have also seen the face of Christ on the face of my friends, my family, and they have taught me a lesson in love. One of them, N3, had an abusive father as a child...and she told me this week that she loves him, after years of hatred and distance and the peace she made that allowed her not to love him, but to move beyond what had happened and find love...the good kind. Yet, she called this week, frustrated she cares for him and the sorrows that have entered his life. I found myself humbled for her love, a love that was able to encompass forgiveness, and the past, and the present, leaving hope in the horizon of the future. I was floored, but not really amazed given who I was talking to. After all I've known for years her heart, and have known the grace in her soul.
Another friend, recently blessed and placed in my life, a kindred spirit...a wonderful woman, a beautiful soul. She gave me a gift this week, and I wasn't expecting it, it in fact floored me...it wasn't the size or the cost...and there are several layers in that...but it was humbling. Because in her actions I felt the love of Christ again...who because of grace...that unmerited, undeserved reality, interposed his precious blood and reached out in love to a broken soul like myself. She too has been having a rough time, particularly where her mom is concerned. But here's the thing, she too has seen spiritual growth that enables her to look at the actions and reactions of her own mom towards herself...and see not the person hurting her, but the soul that is lost, My friend, with a deep awarness of that loss her mom has shrugged her shoulders at the accussations and hurtful events and words that have been flung at her. In her eyes was almost the pleading cry that no matter the personal cost her mom come to know Hope, the only hope she has of leaving this life knowing what love is, or who Love is...and being transformed by that love. I was humbled. Again.
This week has seen people near me fling hurts my direction and I haven't quite been up to the snuff of my friends, my inner circle...my family. (Maybe that's why I keep them around...j/k, but it is a decided perk.)
However, I found myself questioning why we love the people we love, especially those who are loved hurt us, disappoint us, do stupid things, or perpetually dish out the actions that rend us emotionally, cause us to weep tears of the soul. and I felt a breath blow through my brain, to show me a truth. One of the reasons we love those we do, beyond reason, circumstances, and all of the above is because it allows us a SMALL glimpse of what it was like for Christ, our Lord, to love us.
All life paused at the aftershock of such an amazing and humbling truth. If we can love through it all...then what does that say about Christ's love. Love that stood in the gap, love that placed Himself between us and what we deserved, nailed to a cross with hell yawning wide to grasp us and show us the real meaning of pain and agony. He volunteered to take the place between a rock and a hard place. Most of us end up there at one point in our lives, if not frequently. We rant and complain and in general try to extricate ourselves as quickly as possible. He stood up, and stood in, and withstood. His is the face of love, and He is looking right at you and right at me.
And He placed enternity in our hearts and it winks back at us, within us, and sometimes it is from a face we already love.
He is the strength when we are weak and I know this, so much so, this week when He alone is holding me together. And once again I hear Him whispering in my heart, "I love you." And yes I am humbled, and overwhelmed and thankful, and....I can only hope to extend this love, even a fraction of it...especially to those I love.
2 comments:
I love you and you make my feeble actions look graceful and strong. Thank you.
God is so good, I think I keep my dad around because he brings that truth to such clear focus to me while he remains muddled and confused about what this life is about. Yesterday he said that if Brenda follows Gods will then they will remain married if she chooses with her free agency to end the marriage that it is against the will of God, and he prays to find peace. I tried to explain that God allows us to be chastens us because he loves us, and that in this bigger picture paint by number theme would be lost in white without the color of the daily trials. And that the blackish hues are needed to trully appreciate the brightest white moments we also get in the balance of life. We had to close the conversation to decide to agree that we disagree, on this point of gospel principles... I find that is only one of the many ways we differe in the view Gods love, the gospel and the atonement, and the abuse of family and treatment of others... to mention a few. I find I still love and hope that he will learn that what he lacks is the ability to take responibilty of the circumstances he has been, and the ONLY way to learn and change from having it happen again. I hate watching the trauma again, but I thrilled that I am not in the middle and I hope those who are will find or have found the only truth and peace through God.
Life is good, somedays just are just hardr then others, but thankfully the sun keeps rising and "everyday is fresh without any mistakes in it!" So I keep pressing on, and maybe one day, I will learn to cherish the trials in the middle of the trials, instead of only mastering the talents of seeing the treasure in the trial after.
I love you and you are one of the faces God often uses in my life to teach and enlighten me. I am often in your debt for being such a fantastic and willing tool in His hands to do so much in others life. I am sure you would have done better in this trial for in this time of stress I have taken a place of hiding in my own life, for few want to talk about the past I have lived in casual conversation and since that is all that is on my mind, trying to figure out what to do about it. I know I should have been out in life lifting and loving, I need to learn how. I feel like a clumbsy crude tool in his hands, but he is the Master and some how is able to do some good with me. For the record I give all this praise to God.
Always
I thought I lost my first comment, and I was feeling eliquent...
Please know that I love you. You are a face of love!
Post a Comment