The Kind of Love that Lays it All Down...

God often works in themes when He's teaching us something. At least that is my experience. Lately, His theme with me has included addressing old wounds...revealing neglected hurts...and allowing Him to heal the oozing mess inside. The path to healing isn't exactly what I expected. As with most of God's ways, it doesn't make sense by the world's wisdom standards. But, spiritually...it makes perfect sense.

The path to healing involves learning to lay it all down...

Last week, I opened James' Great Adventure Bible for his bedtime devotion, and I was promptly smacked right between the eyes with this...

Love Passage for Kids

If I can speak beautifully and sing like an angel, but don't love others, I sound like a child banging on a piano or a screeching radio. If I'm very smart - almost a genius - but don't love others. I am nothing.

Love will stand in line and wait its turn.

Love looks for the good in others.

Love doesn't always want what others have, and it doesn't brag about what it does have.

Love is polite, even when the other person is rude.

Love doesn't have to be first.

Love doesn't get angry over small things, and it doesn't remember one reason after another to be hurt.

Love isn't happy when someone else fails but is happy with the truth.

Love will always protect others, especially those who are often picked on or teased.

Love always believes the best about others and is steady and true.

Love never gives up.

The three most important things to have are faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.
~ I Corinthians 13

I've mentioned before that I'm not really a grudge-keeper. Frankly, there just isn't room for all the heavy, nor energy to keep myself feeling hurt and angry. I never thought that the verse about keeping a record of wrongs was about me. Until I read the children's version of the chapter. While teaching James, I was being taught...as is usually the case.

A pastor once said that we can measure whether we are truly loving others by inserting our own name in place of  the word love in each verse. James and I inserted our names and felt the conviction set in, groaning a little after each one. I ended the lesson with the truth that we can never love others this way in our own power. We will always fall short, and we need the Holy Spirit to teach us to love...to love others through us.

The words: 
Love doesn't get angry over small things, and it doesn't remember one reason after another to be hurt.

Love looks for the good in others....

Love believes the best about others...

...ran through my head as I pictured the few people in my life I've struggled to love. If you asked me, I'd say, "Sure, I love that person." But, when I measure my behavior against God's word, I have to admit, I have failed. I have failed to always find the good. I don't often get angry over small things...but what about the bigger things? The things that leave wounds that run deep? I thought of how I have allowed certain hurts to run through my mind over and over, pushing out my love for the person. Replaying hurts, clinging to them, instead of to the Lord....that isn't love. Love looks for the good in others...believes the best...always protects.

Love...lays it all down. The expectations we have, the disappointments, the hurts. Love lays it all down. What if we loved like that? What if we looked at our family...our friends...our loved ones and really laid it all down at the feet of Jesus? What if we embraced the relative at every gathering that drinks too much and says inappropriate things? What if we reached out in genuine love to the one who caused our festering wounds? What if we released them and most of all ourselves from the grip of unforgiveness? What if we lay down our expectations of what a mother, father, child, sister, brother, husband, friend, aunt, uncle, or grandparent should do, be, or say...and just enjoy the person before us...just as they are? What if we closed our eyes to the things that annoy and disappoint us...and even the things that are meant to hurt us intentionally? What if we could carry those hurts to the feet of Jesus and leave them there?

We can, you know...

It isn't easy...and it hurts. But, we can lay it all down. And, how free and light we will be when we do.  I'm learning...and trying...and sometimes failing and falling. But, while I'm weak...He is strong. Through my brokenness, He will bring healing and restoration. For now, my (sometimes difficult) prayer is that God will give me eyes to see those before me as He does...that He will enable me to love the person before me. To lay it all down, and allow His grace and love to pour over us.

I used to want to protect my children from the ways others can disappoint them. I wanted to keep them from every imperfection in others...from every poor influence. I have realized along the way that I was wrong. While I still believe children should be protected to some extent from certain influences and we should guard what their eyes see and what their ears hear, I no longer believe they can be sheltered from being around people who may let them down. It's not possible, and it's not teaching love. How will others know the love of Jesus if we hide our light under a bushel? Sometimes, we have to venture into the dark in order to shine our light.


Man...I don't want to miss it. One of my favorite things He does is to make something beautiful out of so much ugly...to restore the broken...to save the lost...to transform a life. I don't want to miss out on that...so I'm praying and one baby step at a time, with His help, learning to love with abandon. (O.K...so I'm learning slowwwwwly...but He's not finished with me yet!)

Love to all...