The only way to really love

The sky grieves hard today, weeping as if it does not know how to stop. Inside I play music and the girls snuggle up for stories, ride stick horses around the house laughing. In here we are warm and bright.

But out there—I keep thinking of the grieving, the earth continually soaking up all the tears of all the heartaches. It is always raining somewhere.

And I keep picturing the face of my friend, the tears in her voice in spite of her sarcastic smile. “What do you do when he fails to meet all your expectations?” she’d said. When the one who vowed to cherish you leaves you alone day after day? When you long for a kind word, recognition, a touch? Where do you go when your life is chaos and his arms are closed?

And anger builds its wall, brick by brick, closing off the heart to keep it safe . . . and alone.

I agree it isn’t fair and I fret over her weary hopelessness and I wonder what I could tell her about what she should do. I mean, how could one person treat another person that way?

That’s how you treated Me.

His voice whispers but I hear it loud enough.

What did I do when you failed to meet all My expectations? When you vowed to cherish and serve Me but instead left me alone, longing for you day after day? Where did I go when you closed your heart to Me?

To the Cross.

He didn’t build walls. He tore them down. He didn’t accuse. He reached out in love. He gave everything to one who withheld everything. Who offered nothing.

But He’s God. Isn’t it easier for Him?

But why should I think it is easier for God to suffer? Surely the One who is purest love feels our wounds the keenest.

When His suffering was the greatest, when those who said they loved Him left Him alone, He cried out to His Father. He grabbed onto the only hand strong and sure enough to hold Him.

And then He forgave those who forgot.

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus . . .

It is too hard a thing to love those who fail us day after day. It is too much to ask us to let go of the anger we grip so tightly.

Unless. Unless we grab the hand that won’t fail.

To take His hand I must first open my own.

I watch the sky falling and I think about the act of love, the will to choose deed over emotion, and my heart quakes. Choosing love exposes me. It means I have to trust. But when my hand is in His, I can reach out across that fearful and uncertain void. I can be vulnerable. I can love even when I am not loved back. I can let go of my needs, because they are already met. I am already fully loved.

And isn’t true love always selfless? Never deserved? Never earned?

When I make him earn my love, I make a mockery of God’s.

We love because He first loved us.

Period.

It’s a choice, a constant act of will. After all, Christ’s love for me—not His demands—drew me to Him. I already knew I was a failure. Somehow He loved me anyway.

That's the kind of love I want.

The earth keeps soaking up the falling sky, filling up with all that rain and turning it to flowers, trees, life and beauty yearning upward.

When I can open my own heart, turning my yearnings upward, I may be amazed at how much it can hold.