More recently, I have seen it with my dad… Let me explain. My dad and I have had little to no relationship. He left my mom for his girlfriend, leaving my mom as a single parent trying to raise my brother and I. That was the beginning of a downhill spiral. And after I got saved, I really tried to learn to love my dad. But so many times it is hard, at best, to love him. Especially when you are not forgiving the past… I had spoken forgiveness many times, but actually forgiving took longer. And somehow at some point God softened my heart and allowed me to forgive my dad and then He asked the nearly unthinkable… He asked me to “just love” my dad. I have tried to share the gospel and he won’t listen. But God said to “just love him.” So I have begun doing that, loving him the way God would, and seeing him as he is, a lost sinner needing the Lord. Without God, without knowing Christ’s love, my dad can’t, himself, understand how to love. And so when he says or does hurtful things, I have to pray and remind myself that he is unaware of true love and cannot act in any other way than he does now. So I have to continue to win him to Christ with love. “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another, and if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other, as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.” Col 3:12-17. I think that pretty much says it all. Will my dad get saved? I sure hope so, I’m believing it for Him. And I am asking you all to pray for him in the mean time. But as for love, it’s all I can do right now, to try to learn to love him as Christ loves us. When I was such a ding dong and not the least bit love-able, Christ died for me. He loved me through it all. And loves me when I’m not so love-able still… So how can I not show His love to someone who so desperately needs it? And how can I show it if I am not plugged in to the very one who loves us unconditionally? I cannot. There is nothing good in me, but Christ. I could go on and on with verses here. But I will stop for now. The above verse reminds me that I am to love, to forgive, to have compassion and kindness, to be thankful, to let the Word dwell in me RICHLY, to worship,to be patient, humble and meek, to have Christ’s peace, and to do all things in the name of the Lord. Now how can I go wrong if I could just do that one section of scripture? I hope that you won’t think from reading this that I have arrived and am somehow hyper-spiritual and able to love the most unloveable person or something. I’m in the process of learning how to show and share His love. One baby step at a time. But I experience His love so much when I have to love those who have been most hurtful to me. My dad. My rapist. My ex-husband. And on the list goes. Someday when I’ve mastered this loving others thing, I’ll post again, hehe! Don’t expect it any time soon…

I have been reading Jeremiah in my personal devotion time. When I came across the part where the Israelites crossed the Jordan river and God commanded them to take 12 stones and place them as a rememberance to Gods provision as they entered into the promised land, I was struck. I began to think about erecting memorials in my own life for all of the times I have recognized God’s hand in my own life. What would it be like if we did this? If I determined to recall God’s faithfulness and love and placed reminders throughout my life for myself and my family to remind them.

I was instantly reminded of the weeks just before my mother’s death. I remember lying beside her in her bed one day, talking about nothing, really. Things she shared, small details of her life I never would have known if she hadn’t been sick and confined to her room where we passed the hours. It was a moment, a snapshot in time I never wanted to forget. Lying there, we both gigled and thought that if we could chose her end, it would be like this. I prayed that her passing could be this sweet. As it turned out, against all odds, from 800 miles away, months later, God orchestrated the events,my work, the time and distance – even the family to hand me the greatest of gifts. To be alone with her, lying next to my mom, sharing the deepest in intimacy, wispering softly and sweetly as she went from my arms to the arms of Jesus in the wee hours of the morning while the rest of the house slept.

It was as if God himself lifted my chin and kissed my forehead as a dad would his daughter – and took away the bitterness and heartache of losing my mom, and replaced it at that moment with joy – that has stayed with me since that moment. How loving and great is our God?

I often think of this gift when I am feeling at whits end. I am reminded that He really does care deeply and although things don’t always work out the way I want them to, I know that the one who holds the future loves His children deeply and that’s all I need to know to find comfort for myself and to minister to others.

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