Love

I Love You Because you Exist

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There are daily life lessons to learn as a foster family.  So many I really can’t share.  Many things I have known, but God is driving a deeper and deeper understanding within me.

What a messy world we live in.  It seems that so many people desire to completely change who they are and are never satisfied within their own skin.  There is a desire and push within this world to completely change the things about ourselves that are clearly defined when we are born.  It is hard enough to figure out things like what school to go to and what career to choose let alone the things about us that are actually very cut and dry.

God continues to reveal to me the deep problem of humanity and what His cure for the problem is.  The greatest need of every human being is to know that there is at least one person that loves them merely because they exist.  A love that has no condition, a love that has no selfish goals, a love that is there even when we are underserving of it.  From the day we are born we are in need of this kind of love.  You cry I will be there, you cause me to be unable to meet my own needs at times…I will be there, you lash out at me…I will be there…   I will still look at you and smile, my eyes will light up when you enter the room.   We all need this kind of love and fewer and fewer are receiving it…even as a small helpless child many never receive this kind of love.

Love like this opens our heart to realizing that we exist because God cared enough to create us and plan our lives.    It opens our hearts to realize that God gave us free will because He wants us to love Him in return because we choose too.  Love like this opens our hearts to understanding that God sent Jesus because He loves us despite our wickedness, flaws, and our unworthiness.   God loves us just as we are because He is.

No matter the struggles and challenges the answer to the deep dark pains of this world is LOVE.   God is helping me love and understand on deeper levels daily…sometimes minute to minute.  To look at every human being with eyes of love merely because of their existence.  Because they are a creation of God.

Our Journey has Officially Begun Foster/adopt#7

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sheep

For the sake of privacy and protection I can’t share too much at all about this amazing last week we have had, but I can share what I am learning.  As I have watched the divine plan of God and His perfect timing unfold in our journey I am not surprised that this happens to be the seventh blog on this subject.  The perfect number.

God has chosen us to be the part of something so amazing and so much bigger than ourselves.

When I gave birth to our first child I remember how as a new mom I would look at her and feel like my heart would just burst with love for her.  I had never felt a greater pouring of love into my very soul like this before.  Our second child came along 3 years later and once again the love poured in.  The love doesn’t run out when it comes from God.  This unconditional I would give my life for you kind of love grows and grows when we forget about ourselves and allow it.

This has been my first experience now of parenting a child that was not given to me by birth.  God strategically laid the foundation within my heart and the rest of the family to prepare us for the blessing brought to us this past week.  As I look back at the lessons, challenges, delays, and how this calling actually began now around 7 years ago I can see the work of God’s hand.

Once again as I look at this life handed to me to care for and nurture I feel this huge pouring of love that makes my heart feel like it will burst.  As complicated and broken as life can be sometimes it is amazing what peace and assurance God brings.  It is amazing how God orchestrates lives to cross paths  showing  just how much He loves every single human being He created.  He will and does go to all sorts of planning  for even one lost sheep.

Luke 15:3-7

“3 Then Jesus told them this parable: 4 “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? 5 And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders 6 and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ 7 I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.”

Ugh When I Feel the Mother Hen in Me Trying to Unleash

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chicken

Every so often and sometimes far too often I am reminded of the battles my oldest child and I have trudged through together.  From the very beginning even her time coming into this world has been a battle to overcome.  I seriously could write a battle book for her from the day I found out I was pregnant with her until now nearly sixteen years later.   There will be many more chapters to add to the book that will grow in greater intensity.  Somehow these far too frequent and early battles will have prepared her for what God has planned for her.  Since the day I knew I was carrying her I have felt this overpowering desire to protect her from a world that loves to tear down who it views as weak.

Her shyness and quiet spirit is all I can account to the reason why others have singled her out and  left her out from day one.  Usually it has been people who should be in her corner backing her that I have watched leave her out and mock her.  Most of the time it has been the  most appropriate for me to sit back and immediately treat her wounds with encouragement, positivity, and instruction how to learn from the world’s harsh reality, rather than confronting the source directly.  Oh there have been times I have had to pray, choose my words wisely, make phone calls, send emails, do research, present her case, and stand up for her as well.  There have been medical battles, school battles, sports battles, child bully battles, etc…

Yesterday I was reminded as she was in goal for an intense game of soccer that I still have that mother hen.  As she was making an appropriate choice to keep her post in goal and let her defenders do their job I hear a scream “COME ON KEEP” from behind me.  It was a tone that if I were a child and yelled at in that manner I would have been crushed and cried.  The tone was like fingernails down a chalk board to me.  The tone said “you are terrible and not doing your job” to me as the mother.    No goal was scored and my daughter had chosen wisely.

With  Easter having just been this last weekend my thoughts went to Mary the mother of Jesus.  In all her humanness I can’t imagine what her own “mother hen” felt like watching her son being mocked, tormented, falsely accused, cursed, beaten, and murdered on the cross.    I can’t imagine being in a crowd that is screaming “CRUCIFY”  and having your one small little voice saying, but he has done nothing wrong…he has done nothing to deserve this…he has never done anything wrong…   With those three words I mentioned above screamed harshly at my own child every nerve in my body stood on end.  I can only imagine with each strike, whip, and each hammer of the nails how Mary’s nerves would have been completely frayed.  She was there at his miraculous conception, his birth, and witnessed so many instances in the life of Jesus that clued her in to the fact that He indeed was the Son of God placed in her womb and entrusted care.  Her Son has the ultimate battle book and fulfilled God’s ultimate plan to fight life’s ultimate battle death.  He alone conquered death for all of mankind.  Mary in her humanness as she watched her boy hang from that cross being cursed at and mocked still did not understand the extent of God’s plan, but kept a mental record of it all.   “She pondered it all in her heart.”

There is nothing we can face or give in this life that is greater than what Jesus did for us.

As a mother I know God loves my children even more than I do and that every challenge faced is to teach them and prepare them for the next.  As a parent God continues to increase my wisdom on how to build up, encourage, and go to bat for my children out of love.  Even with our next journey in life with fostering I feel this mother hen in me desiring  to protect children who are weak and have no one to battle for them.  Sometimes it will be taking a stand for them and sometimes it will be providing the encouragement, love, and instruction to help wounds heal…   I really don’t like the feeling of my mother hen rattling the cage, but God has put this drive and fight within me for a reason…

 

Life is More than a Vending Machine

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vending machine

The other day my youngest daughter and I had dashed out of the house without eating any breakfast.  Our place of destination that morning happened to have a vending machine full of junk food that could provide a very short lived satisfaction to hunger pains (with no nutritional value I must add).   My daughter asked if I had change so she could get a snack until we can get some “real food”.  With those big blue eyes softening my heart I of course  caved and told her to go ahead and get some change from my wallet for  a snack.  Her first try to obtain a snack of her choice the tasty treat became entangled in the spiral mechanics of the machine and would not drop below to her reach.    Upon her second try for another choice the snack once again became stuck between the spiral grasp and the glass door of the machine.   After the second try  the only thing being fed was the machine with mom’s change instead of her belly so she decided to call it quits and just count her/our losses.

 

This encounter reminded me so much of the world we live in.  Some give and give yet never seem to get ahead or become successful according to the standards of our world.  There are some who may give a little and get what someone else paid for and lost.  There are some who may just shake life and make demands and the demands are granted without any work or effort.    Sometimes worldly systems work  sufficiently and one can get what they have worked/paid for.  Life can really seem unfair and meaningless.

Life of one who has a relationship with Jesus provides so much more than the give and take of this world we live in.  The things that are so fleeting and superficial, beauty, money, power, fame, attention, etc… start to become just that, superficial, as one’s relationship deepens with Jesus.   A quote caught my attention in Dr. Warren W. Wiersbe’s Bible Commentary of the New Testament.  “God’s love for His own is not a pampering love; it is a perfecting love.”    It seems all anyone wants to hear is what God will give give give.  Our lives are so much more than what we can get.  The world is so focused on “self” and what God and others can do for “me me me”.    God’s plan for us is to perfect us.  Not in a way the world sees perfection.  It is a perfection of faith and love.  The more He perfects our faith the more of His light and love can flow through us.   The stronger our faith the more God can work through us to love others perfectly.  The stronger our faith the less we let ourselves get in God’s way.  Sometimes deepening our faith means we have to go through a lot of pain, suffering, sorrow, and mistakes in this life.  When it comes down to it I would much rather be perfected than to have everything perfect.  When I look back on what may seem a complete mess in my own life I can see God’s perfect plan and how it evolved and refined my faith.

Romans 12:2 “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.  Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is– His good, pleasing and perfect will. “

What I Use as Life’s Measuring Stick

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Jesus-on-the-cross

It is hard to even count how many times the subject of “why do the innocent suffer?” comes up in conversations.  The nicest people seem to be the ones who suffer from cancer.  Why do sweet children ever have to suffer?   Why does it seem that evil can have the upper hand torturing and murdering ones who follow the true living God? The measuring stick that brings me comfort and hope when asking the darkest questions of this life is Jesus.  When I look at what He endured on that cross for us it brings about a whole different perspective.  We often think of how undeserving the suffering of so many innocent lives actually is.  There has never walked a human being on this earth more undeserving of suffering than Jesus Christ, the Son of God, God in the flesh, fully human yet fully God, perfect and sinless.  Why would God do that?  Why would He come to earth to be rejected, tortured, and murdered?  Did you ever think that what He has planned beyond this life on earth for those who believe in Him is totally worth any suffering we face in our short lifetime?  He conquered sin and death by dying and proved that He is God by rising on the third day just as He said.  He fulfilled all prophecy and has kept every promise thus far.  Do you think the promise of eternal life is where the true blessing is at?  I do. When I compare everything to the cross nothing ever measures up to Jesus.

John 16:33 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

What is Ever Truly Resolved by an Argument?

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When I really stop and try to think of a time that arguing has ever solved any kind of problem I truly can not think of an example.  Even if someone gets their way by arguing what is really won when hostility and harsh feelings are left behind?  There is nothing that cools the flames of anger any better than love.  Love given when the person on the receiving end may be far from deserving of it.  Love is the only power that can break down the walls of bitterness.  Our human nature wants to always be right, but what is the cost?  Our pride can cost us our family, friends, employment, reputation, blessings in life, and the list goes on.

Holding our tongue and showing love instead of anger is the greatest problem solving solution I have ever know to actually work.  Maybe because it is God’s solution to conflict…LOVE!

2 Timothy 2:23-25 “And the Lord’s servant must not quarrel; instead, he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful.  Those who oppose him he must gently instruct, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.”

Proverbs 15:1 “A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.”

Words are so powerful.  Words of anger cause problems.  Words of love solves them.

Show me Something Beautiful

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images

As I waited in a hospital waiting room today to just have a routine preventive care exam I noticed a man making hand gestures to his phone.  As I looked closer he was signing to a lady on his phone.  The angle I had gave me the privilege of viewing them both as they communicated.  It was beautiful.  I was unable to assess who was deaf because they continued in this silent beautiful language.  Not knowing sign language myself I had no idea what they were saying so I felt that my long and frequently looks that direction were less invasive.  Their overcoming of an obstacle and a positive that has come from technology warmed my heart.

My prayer this morning pleaded with God to show me some beauty in this world.  The injustices and oppression of innocence in our world has had me very down lately.  Ultimately I know God is in control of all.  Sometimes I wonder if I am doing everything I can and what God wants me to do to help the hurting and brokenness in our world.  This was a reminder to continue to see human beings as Jesus sees them.  To love at every opportunity.   A reminder that God provides a way to overcome life’s obstacles.

There is such a focus on racism especially in the United States right now.  To me it is greatly instigated by the news media and small hate groups that get big publicity.  When I look at our country I see a huge melting pot of every nationality.  I see more blended families than ever.   I see families adopting children no matter the race or disability.  When I am at work I see nurses of every color holding the hands of patients of all colors.  The medical field has people from every color and nationality working together to provide care of others.  In the everyday life of everyday working people striving to provide for their families there is not a problem of racism.  By the way the people communicating by sign language were a different color of skin than me.  They were beautiful.   Human beings are beautiful no matter the color or disability.  What has made this an ugly world is sin.  The evil in a person’s heart.

We have a choice we can look at others with hate in our heart for any differences or we can look at others with love.  The only true way to fully look at others with love comes from the love of Jesus Christ.  He didn’t hang on the cross and say I am only dying for a certain color of skin, religion, or physical perfection qualities.  No He died for all so that the greatest infliction that we all suffer from, sin, can be wiped away.  So that our eyes, ears, and hearts can be fully opened to the truth.  So that we can truly know what it means to be loved and to show love.

Romans 13:10 “Love does no harm to its neighbor.  Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.”

Romans 5:8  “God demonstrates His love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

1 John 4:7-11 “ Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.  Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.  This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.  This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.  Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another”

I can’t say it better than God’s word.  Allow the love of Jesus to fill your life and ask Him to help you see others the way He does.  You will be amazed at the beauty that surrounds us in the people that surround us.