HOW DO YOU LOVE WHEN LOVE IS TOUGH?
I have mentioned here before that I am a totally hopeless romantic. I love love, love being in love, love talking about love, love reading about love, love watching cheesy Hallmark movies about love (don't hate on them; they are awesome!) Give me a story that ends with a 'Happily Ever After' and I will love it (and read it about a thousand times). Love is wonderful.
And, the wonderful thing for me that happened in my life is that I found a true fairytale, romantic kind of love! I'm not saying it was perfect and that we never fought. We were passionate people; about each other and about life. That leads to some pretty passionate fighting. But the makeup was usually worth it😉 When we got married, part of what we vowed to each other was to never throw around the word divorce. Greg came from a broken family and I came from a very long line of marriages that lasted lifetimes. We did not want to give divorce a voice or an option of being on the table. Greg would make fun of us when he spoke, saying that we never talked about divorce; murder, yes, but never divorce😂
So when days like Valentine's Day come around, it is easy to grieve the loss of love. Truthfully, we never made much of Valentine's Day because every day was so full of love. We would go out to dinner on Valentine's Day (easy date night away from the kids excuse) but it was never really about the flowers, candies, cards or jewelry. I got those things sporadically throughout the year. How I miss those days! I find myself thinking back to those fun times. If I could have another hour with him...*sigh*.
Being a widow now for four years, I know I can't stay in that place. So where do I turn? You guessed it, to the source of love that I know best. God's love for me. Some may ask me, why do you turn back to God, always? It is because He is the place where all my hope lies. I was on a plane not long ago talking to someone about Jesus, about my hope in Him. The man was not impressed with my reliance and made it seem as if my "religion" was a crutch. "Well", I said to him, "if it is a crutch, it's working for me. I know where I am going to go when I die and I have a peace that passes all understanding." This is why I choose to turn to God.
Remember, we are made in the image of God and God has a thing for love. We know that God so loved the world that He gave His only Son to die for us, but God also tells us at the beginning of time that God wants us to love Him too. He would spend copious amounts of time with Adam and Eve and then when He was giving instructions to Moses for His people, He told them to love Him.
Jesus expounded on what God said in Mark 12:30, "And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength." What does it mean to love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength?
I think the heart part is pretty easy. When we say we love from the heart, it's with affection and gooey feelings. To me, it's to love God passionately and with fervor; to see all He's done for us and to love Him because He first loved us.
To love God with your soul seems to me to be the dedication part. Where you truly surrender your will for His. When you love God so much that you trust Him with your salvation and your life. Have you ever seen Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade? Remember when there is a bridge he can't see to step on and it takes all that is within him to take the first step and trust it's going to be there? The soul has to trust completely and be committed to loving Him.
To me, the mind means knowledge. To love God with my mind, to me, practically speaking, is to know Him and His will in my life. This doesn't mean I know everything about Him or where He's leading me (if I did, that wouldn't make Him very powerful), but that I spend time with Him every day, reading His word and talking to Him in prayer. How do you get to know anyone? You put quality time into getting to know about them. What are their likes, their dislikes, their experiences? What makes them who they are? You really can know all these things about God. He wants a personal, real relationship with you!
And to love God with your strength, to me, is the commitment to persevere in loving God no matter what comes into your life. We are never told when we choose to love God that hardships won't happen. I didn't get that promise when I married Greg either, nor did I expect it. Life is going to throw us hard times, but when we choose to love God and trust Him despite what we feel like or how hard it might get, it's then that we can truly appreciate how much He loves us. As my pastor always says, the blessing is the doing, not just the understanding or the knowing. And love is an action, isn't it?
So, while some of us may not have a "valentine" this holiday season, we all have something much better. We have a God who loves us unconditionally. Let's choose to love Him with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength as He loves us in all of our beautifully brokenness.
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