What Love Looks Like...

What love looks like at our house... 

11 pm run to Whataburger, because a lemon pie sure sounds good.
An “I love you” at the end of every phone conversation.
Switching the laundry over for someone who forgot they left a load in the washer.
A back rub.
Playing a favorite song on the piano.
Watching a mystery movie together.
Laughing at a lame joke.
Dancing together.. even tho Tucker is the only one with moves.
Praying together.
Crying together.

Cleaning up dog puke when you could pass the job off to someone else.
Making dinner on Saturday nig
hts.
Talking to each other.
Celebrating successes.
Learning from failures.
Cheering each other on after a bad day or week. 

See love isn’t always wrapped up in the ways the world would chose you to believe today. Sometimes it’s in a 5 inch Whataburger lemon pie and sometimes it’s when your spouse takes your car to be washed and vacuumed without you asking. It’s not wrapped up in sex. It’s not what you see on tv. It’s not Hallmark movies or porn or soap operas or The Bachelor or even This is Us. 

Real love loves when the hair turns grey, the weight changes, the money is thin, the health fades, the mind slips, the arguments fly. Real love keeps loving... it doesn’t runaway because things just aren’t working out, or because someone has fallen out of love.

Real love loves like Jesus. Unconditionally, wholeheartedly, infinitely. Real love endures, sacrifices and is generous. 

We only know how to love well if we know Jesus... we love because he loved us first. He set the example...he lived, he loved, he sacrificed, he kept his promises, he’s coming back... what an example to love and live like He did...
Not just on Valentine’s Day ... but everyday! 

#goals

Tough Love - Part 2

Relationships...the test of patience, the test of endurance and yes, the test of love.

As I get older I struggle sometimes with the energy that it takes to have relationships with those I love. Sometimes I'm tired and I don't want to exert the energy it takes to put into a relationship...even though I know in the long run that it will help it grow.

Sometimes I get frustrated with the dynamics of relationships...let's face it....some relationships we didn't choose. The people we are related to, work with, go to church with, stand in line at the grocery store with....not all of these would have been our ideal pick if we were setting ourselves up on a blind date!

And on the contrary....some people are easy to love. They work hard in the relationship to invest, counsel, love and care. We all love these people....we want more of them. We selfishly wish everyone was more like them.

But one of Christ's most challenging command was to "love your enemies...pray for those who despitefully use you". Well, isn't that....special. I'm sure Jesus couldn't have meant this....the haters, the gossipers, the users, the slanderers, the enemy....those people???....Pshhhhh...I don't think so!...Oh, but it is.

And it's hard.

Nearly impossible.

And sometimes, I don't want to do it.

I just don't want to put the effort forth.

Sometimes I'm hurt and disappointed and frustrated and it's easier to become like them....the enemy.

That's when it gets tough. And I am faced with the decision to love instead of hurt.

But it's more than that...I'm faced with the decision to obey Christ or disobey Christ. That's the more pressing issue on my heart. Do I love HIM enough to obey His commands? Do I love HIM enough to love my enemy? And what does that even mean? God's Word gives us a few ideas for loving our enemies.

1. Pray for them. Luke 6:28
2. Do not talk about their faults. I Peter 2:1
3. Set healthy God-honoring boundaries. Proverbs 22:24
4. Live peaceably with them. Don't stir up strife. Romans 12:18
5. Forgive them...whether they ask or not. Matthew 6:12

Notice this doesn't say...invite them on family vacation or for your kid's birthday party. Even God knows our limits. And while some hurts are shallow...others pierce the soul and body and in this life will never be completely forgotten. God gives us opportunities to love our enemies without them even knowing we are loving them. It's almost like loving our enemies changes us....more than it does them. Oh...wait...maybe that's His purpose anyway....Changing us through loving like He loves.

This is the tough love. This is the hard stuff. This is real love. Sort of like the love God has for me...except my love is still flawed. It's not perfect..I will fail...I will mess this up. But it's the kind of love we should all strive for...and with God's power...we can love our enemies.

True Love - Part 1

During the month of February I'll be blogging off and on about what true love looks like. This first part is about God's Love...first because without it, there is no other kind of love.

The first love I remember experiencing was of course the love of my parents and because I was raised in a home with parents that knew about God and had a relationship with Him, from an early age I learned about Jesus (God's son) love for me. From singing Jesus Loves Me, Every Day with Jesus is Sweeter than the Day Before and The B-I-B-L-E...to attending church and Sunday School weekly, I heard the message loud and clear. God loved me.

At the young age of five I began understanding a little about this kind of unconditional love and by the age of twelve I knew beyond a doubt that this perfect, sacrificial, never-ending love that God had for me was nothing that even my good parents could compare with. And since that time it seems I keep discovering more and more of what God's love for me looks like.

- His love is unconditional....it's not based on what I've done or what I'm going to do. He loves me. Period. That's it. And that's my favorite. What I choose to do in return for His love is purely an offering and doesn't gain me any more love than the next gal. God doesn't play favorites...he plays intimates...what I gain from growing more in love with Him has nothing to do with Him loving me more and everything to do with me getting to know Him more intimately. He cannot love me more than He does today or did yesterday because that would mean somehow His love was deficient then or in the future...and that would contradict His character...that He is fully everything always.

- His love changes me....knowing more about who He is and how He loves makes me want to love better. He loved me first....He loved me unconditionally...He loved me in spite of the ugliness of my sin nature. He loved me knowing that I would betray Him, disappoint Him, doubt Him and fail Him. What a love to aspire to give! As I grow to know Him, I realize just how enormous this love is. I see my inadequacies and realize that no matter how I fail to measure up, He still loves me. This is such a valuable lesson for me to transfer into my own relationships. Patience is essential. As a wife and mom, my love for Bruce and my kids will be much more perfected if I can learn to love like God loves me. His love changes me from quick-tempered and mouthy to patient and kind when I stop long enough to remember His example towards me.

-His love is worth sharing....with everyone. The homeless, the church member, the single mom, the disgruntled employee, the grocery checker, the president of the USA, the orphan, the drunkard, the student and everyone in-between. There is not one single person that doesn't deserve to hear of His great love...not the homosexual, the man with AIDS, the druggie, the pot smoking hippie, the naked tribal man in the jungles of the Philippines or the American college student at the finest left winged institution. The way the world finds out that we know about this God of love is BY our love.



John 13:35 says, By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.


That's the way we are associated with Jesus....that's how other's know that we belong to Him...by our love...our Godly love towards them. It's not a weak love, it's not a pushover love, it's not a do whatever you want and never pay a consequence for your actions kind of love....no. It is a love that offers grace for each mistake, hope for every rotten self inflicted bad choice and peace for the soul that longs for more than sleepless nights of tossing and turning over the problems of this world.


He loves you just like that. NOW. Right this minute. This is the kind of love that can be yours for the asking. Too good to be true? Almost.....it's a one in an eternity kind of perfect love. That's my God's love....true love.

Days of Thanks -#30

Day 30- thankful to have witnessed the exchange of wedding vows tonight and the reminder of the purity and beauty of true love.

Days of Thanks #19

Day 19- thankful that nothing can separate me from the love of God... Not anything..no thing... Thank you Jesus!

Days of Thanks #3

Day 3 - I am thankful for a God who loves me at my best and at my worst.

My Valentine

Last Thursday Bruce and I celebrated our 20th year as valentines. 

20 years of joys and sorrows

20 years of ups and downs

20 years of successes and mistakes

20 years of good and bad choices

20 years of selflessness and selfishness

and 

20 years of God's 

Amazing blessings pouring over us

Gentle hands leading us

Perfect love teaching us

Thanks to our Savior for modeling to us the greatest love...

giving yourself to another, for another. 

Without this love...

our 20 Valentines would mean nothing 

but clanging

 and clanking

 and crashing 

Thanks to our Savior for this amazing gift of love.

What I Know About Love

1 Corinthians 13 (Message)

The Way of Love

 ¹ If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. ²If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing. ^3-7If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.    Love never gives up.    Love cares more for others than for self.    Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.    Love doesn't strut,    Doesn't have a swelled head,    Doesn't force itself on others,    Isn't always "me first,"    Doesn't fly off the handle,    Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,    Doesn't revel when others grovel,    Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,    Puts up with anything,    Trusts God always,    Always looks for the best,    Never looks back,    But keeps going to the end.

 ^8-10Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.

 ¹¹When I was an infant at my mother's breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.

 ¹²We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!

 ¹³But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.

They're NOT too Young

She's almost nine...just two months shy.

She's beautiful and sweet....and imperfect. But she surprises me everyday with her heart.

Last night as we sat around the computer looking at pictures of Lima and Pichanaki and even some of the pictures that our missionary friends had sent us of the projects we are going to be working on, she sat in silence. At first I thought she was sad because we were going to be gone for so long. She wouldn't make eye contact and when I finally caught her eyes she held her breath that way we all do when we don't want to cry but the tears are brimming in our eyes.

I asked her what was wrong and all she could do was shake her head. By this time she was wiping the tears from her eyes and taking quick little breaths to regain composure. We continued talking and looking at the pictures and finally she couldn't take it anymore and began to openly weep. Then it hit me. She understood. She finally realized what we were going for...She GOT it. She had been looking into the faces of people who she has never met, whose worldly possessions could fit in one room of our home, who don't have roofs over their heads or name brand anything and who don't know about Jesus....and it made sense why her mom and dad were going.

"I understand now, mom".  She said.

"Understand what?"

"How some people don't have stuff. How some people need houses and food and how we have everything we need and more. How some people haven't heard about Jesus".

Click.

I wish I could have frozen that moment forever. By that time tears were streaming down my face. She's not too young, I thought. She's NOT too young. It's clicking....all these things that we've been trying to get her to understand. All the trips to Wal-mart when we don't buy her toys and she gets mad and we try to explain that when we don't buy toys sometimes it is so we can give to someone who has nothing.....it's all starting to click....and it's beautiful.

Immediately she began thinking of something that she could send to the kids she saw in the pictures. She went and gathered all her small stuff animals and brought them to me and asked if I thought I could fit them in my suitcase to give to kids we see along the way that maybe don't have one. Then Tucker got on the bandwagon and gathered cars and trucks that he wanted to send. And I really don't care if it cost me $30 to take an extra suitcase to Peru....these things are going with me. These things that represent something greater than things....A heart of a child that is beginning to understand bigger stuff than stuff.

They're not too young.

The Gift

Ridiculed

Beaten

Bruised

Torn

Thorned

Pierced

Forgotten

Abandoned

Ignored

Rejected

Despised

Burdened

Slaughtered

Sacrificed

Spat on

Yelled at

Bloodied

Broken

Hated

and 

Heckeled

and yet....He was Jesus....God's own Son

Willing 

Devoted

Loving

Prayerful

Committed

Undefiled

Spotless

Controlled

Resolved

Available

Powerful

....Holy

and I am...

Entirely forgiven

Unbelievably grateful

Immeasurably undeserving

Completely humbled

Totally awed

Quietly amazed

Unconditionally loved

and 

Eternally Thankful

....and even then....it seems such a small whisper in the ear of God.