This is the part where I start to internally cringe whenever the subject of love gets brought up. I’m not a lovey dovey person, anyone that has known me for about 5 minutes knows that I’m just not into the ooey gooey love sick puppy bit, but the disgust is a knee jerk reaction to fear. I hate it because if I hate it, then I’ll never let it happen, and if I never let it happen then I won’t get hurt.
My parents split when I was very little and my dad spent about a decade after that coming in and out of my life in a way that left me crushed and completely hopeless. In my mind, I wasn’t lovable. He couldn’t bear being around me, he never fought to stay close by, he didn’t believing in me, if he would he would check in more often, he had no hope in me being anything beneficial or worth staying for, he couldn’t endure the horror of having me as a daughter.
As dramatic as that seems that was the lie that I believed about my self for almost 19 years. I wasn’t worth anything, and the simple thought of being around me sent the one man that was suppose to love me forever simply for being me, running for the hills, he would come back but leave again, no matter how hard I tried to prove my worth, he would always find some reason to split...every single time. Leaving me completely broken and hopeless inside, believing I was unbearable, hopeless and that no one would ever be able to endure me for very long,I genuinely believed that eventually everyone would leave and give up on me. Nothing I did would ever prove I was worth it.
The scariest part of all of this is that I wasn’t even aware that I was believing this lie. I’ve never been one to blame the devil for every little wronging that goes on in my life, but when one of the Pastor’s taught on “believing the Lie” ( that lie that we have all let infiltrate our lives as truth and is now being a hinderance to our relationship with the Lord) it all clicked. Not only was this lie infiltrating the way I viewed myself, others and my entire perspective on Life, but the way that I viewed and trusted the Lord as well.
I was relying on works to please the Lord, because that was the only way I could figure out to even try and attempt to impress my earthly father. Every time I sinned I would cringe and postpone going before the Lord, because I knew that when I did confess He would walk away from me, tired of putting up with me, deeming me once and for all unworthy, not only of earthly love but of His perfectly Love as well.
You know what though? He hasn’t left me yet, and I am now convinced that He never will. God IS LOVE. That means that when we read chapter 13 of the first letter to the Corinthians, what we are really reading is that God suffers long and is kind, God bears all things (including me), believes in all things (including me) and endures all things (also including me).
God will not leave me, God will always be fighting for my best, God will not get tired of my shenanigans and abandon me, His Love endures forever. He in turn gives me hope, strength to bear and endure all things and He will give me the strength to believe that He really does love me unconditionally and irrevocably, and that He wants the best for my life and that He won’t just walk away half way through our Journey. He is a faithful God, and He who began a good work in me will be faithful to complete it, holding my hand the entire way through, never letting me go.
I will obey Him and work for His glory not in an attempt to keep Him in my life, but as a response of the fact that He intervened in my life and loved me with such a fierce and redemptive Love that He knew my heart so desperately needed.
Application:
I will spend 30 minute meditating on Chapter 13, mindful of the fact that our God is Love.
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