For the Love of God

Today, I just want to write from my heart and see what comes out.

I spent time with a friend from church yesterday sharing our hearts and life experiences with each other. I shared stories of my battles and victories, and my testimony of freedom from depression, anxiety, and panic attacks. She has sought the Lord all her life, and her greatest desire is to really know Him. I love that.

I shared with her about what it truly means to “let go and let God.” We spoke about the importance of searching out scriptures, writing them down, and speaking them out as our part in the battle for our minds. We discussed the disconnect between what we know to be true, what we say we believe, and how we live our lives Monday through Friday.

Unfortunately, if we judged ourselves by how we speak and act during the week, sometimes it would be difficult to recognize whether or not we were sitting in church on Sunday.

We have to get better at being consistent. Myself included.

But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves. For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like. But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it.

James 1:22-25

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I’m not a political person. By that, I mean that I do not listen to political commentators on television. I used to, but I began to have the overwhelming feeling that there were not very many who were telling the unspun truth. Many stories were told, and many opinions were formed by people who couldn’t possibly know what really happened because no one in the room was actually there. So much conjecture. So much anger, bitterness, and back-biting.

The negativity of the shows began to make me feel bad, and I began to firmly believe that I was being lied to, at least in part. So I quit. I haven’t regretted it even once.

Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

Ephesians 4:31-32

Even if everyone else is a liar, God is true…

Romans 3:4a

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I am thankful that Roe v. Wade was overturned. Everyone has to discover their own stance on this matter, but ever since I went to the capital in my teens and stood for the human rights of babies in the womb, I have been firmly pro-life. I have never had an abortion, but my life has been touched by it, and I have personally witnessed the guilt, grief, and anger… the damage and lifelong devastation it can cause in a woman’s life. I have also personally witnessed the outcomes of unconditional love, total freedom, and complete healing offered by our loving Father in this area. (Need help? After Abortion Support)

I have had to wrestle with the “what-ifs” since having children, especially since having a daughter. God forbid that we, or anyone else, might have to make some decision on this matter because we are on the other side of a bridge we didn’t choose to cross. I pray we never have to face it, and if we do, I pray we have the strength to walk it out with the Lord.

I also pray that I never make anyone feel unloved because of their choices. Life is hard. It can be excruciating to think of adding another baby to the family after a moment of passion when it’s already nearly impossible to care for the children you have. Babies are conceived in the midst of contraception and safe choices ALL the time. I can only imagine the anguish of conceiving, carrying, and delivering a child and then giving it up for adoption, but I pray these mamas choose life for their babies… and I pray to love them like Jesus would love them, no matter what choice is made. He loves all of us completely and unconditionally.

So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.

John 13:34-35

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Gender is a painful issue for so many people. Nothing will fill the “gender void,” or any other gaping wound of the soul, but the love of Christ. The real Jesus of the real Bible who is loving, gentle and kind to those who are lost and in great need. He is a loving father, a loyal and compassionate friend, full of joy and hope. He prays for us endlessly and wants only for our eternal good… never to harm, never to condemn (Jeremiah 29:11, Romans 8:1).

One thing I know for sure is that who a person is, the purpose and calling on their life, and the “assignment” of every atom and gene in the human body… every plan for redemption, every plan for our good… was called into being and set into motion long before mom and dad’s “biology” ever had a chance to meet.

God knew us and loved us completely long before we were born.

You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.

You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.

How precious are your thoughts about me, O God. They cannot be numbered!

Psalm 139:13-17

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I am incredibly imperfect. I have made more mistakes than I can even count, and will make even more every single day until I die. There’s no avoiding it.

But I am loved.

I am loved perfectly and completely… without walls, without hesitation. And so are you.

I have intimately experienced abandonment and rejection many times on this earth, but I have never been abandoned, rejected, or even held at arms length by the Father. His door is never closed, His arms are always open. Even when I bring all of my mistakes and painful-angry-frustrated emotions to Him and honestly lay them all out on His table, He never turns away. I pray to have a teachable spirit during these moments so He can show me how to see people and circumstances the way He sees them.

God does not just love. He IS love. And the Bible says that people will know Him and His children by their LOVE.

How can we love better? How can we sit with the Father and abide in Him long enough to adopt His kind of love? How can we become stronger in love-acceptance-forgiveness than we are in bitterness-envy-backbiting-strife?

I desire these things for myself, so I go to the Father. I have nowhere else to go. I go to His Word, I go to prayer, I go to worship. I set myself down and have honest conversations with the Lord and ask for His help. I look up scriptures about issues I am having, write them down, and speak them over myself as my part in the battle for my mind, for my life, and for the lives of others.

Decades of depression and anxiety sprinkled with panic attacks… failure in life and ministry… a nervous breakdown and suicidal desires. All the outcomes of pride, self-righteousness, selfish ambition, idols, controlling behaviors, and fear. Every one the outcome of sin. I held onto it until there was nothing left but me and Jesus. And I’m so thankful He stayed through it all.

When you finally hit rock bottom and come to the end of yourself, there’s nowhere to go but UP. Don’t wait as long and as stubbornly as I did. Go to the Father now. Seek Him out, search through His Word, and apply it to your life. It’s the best decision you could ever make.

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him.

John 3:16-17