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.  

 

Not seeing is believing

What do we do when it makes no sense? When we don't see what God is doing, can't understand His ways? When we find ourselves wondering if He is really working all things for our good as He promised?

What do we do when we give and give and the results are not what we were expecting? When the sacrifice seems pointless? When it seems all the work was for nothing?

We give thanks. (I'm learning a lot from Ann Voskamp.)

I can't see the eternal results of our efforts, but there are plenty of temporal ones:
* The kids got to witness our faith in action. Our family served and sacrificed together.
* B and I grew closer through this. We are more deeply connected than we ever have been.
* We realized we could do something that a year ago seemed impossible. 
* We touched a few lives for a few days, and maybe they will remember. Maybe our offered love will be seeds sown in fertile hearts.

I will thank God for all we learned and experienced. For using us in a small but significant way. For helping us to become more open and willing to give. For knowing the details so I don't have to. For promising that all things WILL work together for good--and I don't have to see or understand, only rest in trust.

Giving thanks reminds me of His faithfulness. It pulls my mind and heart upward, opens my eyes to Him anew.

Then I remember I only need to abide. He does the rest.

Into the Hard

"Then the King will say . . . 'Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me . . . inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me'" (Mt. 25:34-36, 40).

And does it not follow that whatever we deny one of the least of these, we deny to Him? If we say no to a need He places before us because it is too hard, too scary, too big, requiring too much sacrifice, what are we really saying?

That the God who gave it all for us, the God who receives us with open arms, the God who promises us all the riches of His kingdom, is not enough?

I have spent too much of my life saying no. I do not want to stand before Him one day full of regret for those I turned away from His kingdom. I want to plunge into the hard so I can see what my God will do. I want to open my arms and my heart to receive all He has for me. I want my kingdom to be there, not here. And someday I want to hear Him say,

"Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your Lord" (Mt. 25:21).

 

Open hands

Woke up to the heaviness of anxiety, exhaustion, and fear. My Bible fell open on this passage:

“Do not fear;

. . . let not your hands be weak.

The Lord your God in your midst,

The Mighty One, will save;

He will rejoice over you with gladness,

He will quiet you in His love,

He will rejoice over you with singing.” (Zeph. 3:16-17)

I think I often want the fear rather than the peace. I want to be in control. I want to be allowed to feel sorry for myself, to wallow in poor me thoughts. 

But how can I believe God and wallow in fear at the same time? How can I listen to Him singing over me while clutching the dirty rags of faithlessness?

He does all the work. He comes, He saves, He rejoices. He sings. He quiets. He only wants me to do one thing:

Do not fear.

When I fear my hands become weak. Hands that should be serving Him are instead clenched in anxious fists or rubbing themselves in worry. 

Opening my hands requires letting go. 

If I truly believe He is big enough for these circumstances that overwhelm me, I should be lifting strong hands in praise, reaching out in service. I can only do so when my gaze is on Him and not myself.

Listen to His song of love for you today instead of to your fears. Will you open your hands to Him?

The Gift of Story

She comes just when I need her, as she always does.

It is the middle of the morning, and already I feel the lonely day stretching ahead of me. My husband is in Romania on a mission trip, my friends are preoccupied with their own busy lives, and my children seem to perceive me as a heaven-sent robot here to meet their every demand. I tuck my heart away with a sigh, ready to dig in.

I pick up the mail and there it is, the square yellow envelope with her name in the corner. Just looking at that name makes me smile.

I tear open the envelope and out she comes, little bits of her heart overflowing with love. A treat for each of the kids and a silly card for me and this, this gift that has to be one of the best I have ever received.

A book for her friend who loves words, full of her words of gratitude…for me.

Page after page of her living love. As I read, I picture her in her house in Texas, taking the precious time to capture our friendship on these pages. Stories flow: the day we met, both of us lonely and in search of a friend. The bond that grew between us in that little Kansas town, a rare friendship that soon became the deepest I have known. Our shared love of the mountains and many outdoor adventures together. Grieving with one another over miscarriages, heartbreaks, disappointments, moving away.

Reading her memories is like holding a piece of her heart. Each page of this gift hands me the treasure we all long for: to know we are loved. Cherished. Valued. Remembered. The laughs bubble up and the tears flow as her words reach out and pull me into what I had forgotten was there.

I remember a recent conversation with my husband. We had just returned from the funeral of a friend where story after story had been told of his life, his love, those he touched with his gentle heart. Wouldn’t it be great to attend your own funeral and hear all those things said about you, we thought.

Or maybe we should say them beforehand?

That’s what Staci did for me today.

I often tell my students that there is nothing like the power of story. We all crave a good story. We are bound together by the stories we share. And isn’t it true that we always seek to know our part in the story, to find our place, to know we have an indispensible role?

Too many of us think we have no part in the story.

We feel forgotten.

But our story has already been written.

“You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed” (Ps. 139.16).

There is One who loves story. And His story includes each of us. We are an indispensible part of making the story happen. Each character is carefully planned.

“He determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us” (Acts 17:26-27).

He wants to be our story, and He wants us to live our stories together. I think the beauty of our entwined lives makes Him glad.

Today He used a friend to remind me that my story matters.

Whose stories matter in your life? Do they know? Have you told them?

Lessons from a Horse Trough

As I stood at the coral fence with my daughters, admiring the horses, I noticed the mud under the gate. And then I saw the water trickling out from the bottom of the trough in a tiny, steady stream. What a shame, I thought. Why would they waste water like that?

Then I noticed that the trough was full to the brim. A spout hanging above poured a continual flow of cool, fresh water into the trough at the exact same rate as the water exiting below. Aha. Fresh water.

A horse stuck its nuzzle in and drank deep.

Fresh water is so much more satisfying.

And if the water gushing so faithfully into the trough stopped, its flow interrupted by neglect or drought or diversion—the hole in the bottom would still be there, and the water would drain away, leaving emptiness.

The trough is designed to hold only fresh water.

But an empty vessel cannot give.

The life cannot flow out unless it is flowing in.

We come with holes, too.

We can let the life leak out, drain away, leaving emptiness. Or we can be filled with the only source of constant life—and we can become lifegivers ourselves, drawing the thirsty.

A constant stream of life pouring in, flowing out.

Reflections on Motherhood

In recent days I have shared in the grief of a young mother giving premature birth to twin boys, one already dead, the other breathing in her arms for a few precious hours before joining his brother. I have watched my friend’s devastation as the plans for adopting a little boy suddenly fell through at the last moment. Another friend with a similar adoption heartache received the doctor’s news that she is unlikely ever to conceive. And another mother with four grown children had to bury her only son after a tragic accident.

And isn’t it true that for all of us mothers—those with living children, those with children who have died, those with children they dream of one day holding, and those with children who will never know the mother who loves them—the love is always intertwined with heartache. The letting go begins the moment we begin to love.

And this, I think, is the picture of the God whose love and heartbreak tinge this world. The One who dreams of us, labors over us, loses us to rejection and selfishness and confused seeking after anything but Him—this God opens His heart and allows the love to break it, all for the joy of holding us again someday. In this hope He pursues and blesses, speaks and breathes over us day after day, pouring Himself out over and over in quest for us. He sacrificed all. He held nothing back.

And so I am learning that motherhood is sacrifice. It is opening my heart completely to those who may reject me, who will certainly wound me, and who may never know the depth of my love. It is choosing to believe that it is worth it to give all.

I think of those who long to be mothers and find encouragement in the words of Adriel Booker:

Will you remember that your children, your role, your name—Mama—is not something you’re entitled, but something released to you as a gift?

Why do we enter so willingly into certain heartbreak? For love, of course. And because, mothers or not, giving and nurturing life is the greatest gift. There is no joy like holding your baby for the first time, like those little arms around your neck, like hearing the first “I love you.” There is no greater joy than watching a child embrace faith and grow in wisdom and strength. We find fulfillment in emptying ourselves for another.

Unfortunately I fail my children. I wound them too. I often close my heart to them, turning away from the hard. It is hardest to forgive myself in these moments. But the God whose heart I have broken promises to “gently lead those who have young” (Is. 40:11) He is gentle with me. He understands.

I can only pour myself out when I am filled with Him. I can only let go when I trust He will step in where I fail. I have His promise regarding my children: “He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart” (Is 40:11).

We too are His lambs. The mothers who suffer the most are those He holds the closest. We can find comfort in knowing that what seems invisible here is written large in eternity.

What they say is true: we cannot understand what our own mothers sacrificed for us until we become mothers ourselves. Thank you, Mom, for daily pouring yourself out for me. For being willing to suffer on my behalf. For the thousands of meals and loads of laundry and wounds overlooked and hurts healed. For the days you chose me when you longed to be somewhere else. For the countless prayers you prayed. For knowing I would never understand what you daily gave and gave up, and loving me anyway. For living out a faith that has weathered many storms and still bears up under sadness. For choosing hope. For supporting me now that I am a mother, for always standing by me in love and not judgment. You could have spent your life in many ways, but you chose to be a mom. And being your daughter is truly a rich gift.

A Prayer for Lent

Abba, 

 

I am not sure I completely understand this season of Lent. Wikipedia says that Lent is “the penitential preparation of the believer” for Holy Week. We take time to stare our sins in the face to more properly understand the significance of Your sacrifice. We fast and pray, repent and deny ourselves, to draw near to You, to take our journey through sorrow and penitence to celebration and new life.

So far I have failed spectacularly in my devotion. I entered into Lent only half-heartedly, half-committing and half-following through. I have denied You much more often than myself.

My failures underscore my utter need for You. I cannot even repent without Your help. Our inability to really do penance reveals our need for the grace that is the cross. We continually try to turn this life into a chance to earn Your sacrifice, to show You how sorry we are and make up for it with our devotion. Trouble is, we are never devoted enough. Your disciples will always be found sleeping.

Even in my worship I need You to fill me. I cannot enter into Your presence until I still my heart and let You come. When I fill my life with busyness and words and work and worry, I deny You the chance to be God in my life. I do not trust You with the moment, so I turn from it. But when I am still, when I stop and enter the moment, then I know You are God. And I see that You are singing my life-song and waiting for me to open to You.

I want the hard times to make me more faithful, not less. I want to fast from my idols not to earn You but to see more of You, to still the desires that clamor all day long. Can one fast from worry?

This journey is about letting You love me, accepting the cross that I did not earn. letting go of the pride that holds You at arms’ length.

I want to plunge into You, to wear You like a cloak that covers all of me, shelters and warms me, keeps me safe and soothes the naked sinful shame of me. I want this Lent to lay me bare so I might feel You on my soul skin, the enfolding love on the chaffed unfaithfulness.