Loving Sacrificially

I know it—intellectually; but emotionally?

The heart is slow to follow the head.

Love requires sacrifice…there is no “easy” button. But, we all search for the path of least resistance. We desire committed, soul-satisfying love. We want to be satiated—filled to the brim. However, while searching for this elusive emotion we never stop to question, “What will this require of me? What will I need to give in order to receive?”

Loving fallen man cannot be easy.  Yet Jesus left His home on high, humbled Himself by taking on human flesh, and then died a horrendous death—all in the name of love.

Sacrifice.

Giving when there may be nothing given in return.

When we put aside self, we learn to walk in love. Our hearts must give in order to receive. There is something about the offering that prepares the heart for accepting. Until we learn to give ourselves away—to sacrifice—we cannot understand what it truly means to be loved.

We must empty ourselves in order to be filled. Sacrifice drains the vessel of the heart in order to make room for the soul-satisfying love we all seek.

I know this. Yet, living out this principle daily requires discipline and patience. However, knowing that I am loved sacrificially by the creator of the world inspires me to dedicate my life to learning this principle emotionally as well as I do intellectually.

Waiting...

Waiting.  It seems that the majority of my life has been spent in limbo—waiting to reach adolescence, waiting to legally drive, waiting to vote, and waiting to be loved.  And with each milestone I have reached, I have found another just a little bit further down the road that needed to be attained.  Mountains have been scaled with many a tear shed.  I have shoved past adversity and stared down challenges with much bravado; but beneath it all I have been lonely and frightened, afraid of the shadows that fall at my feet.

When have I waited in hope?  To be quite honest, never; but now I must wait and watch.  Do I know, I mean really know, who or what I am waiting for?  Can I trust the unseen?  Can I trust God?  Questions obstruct my view until I feel as if I am wandering through the darkness with my hands secured tightly behind my back.  There is no way to maneuver through the gloom my mind has created.  Not without God, not without hope.  So, here I wait.

I remember waiting for my dad to die.  Was I hopeful?  Yes and no.  I was torn into a million tiny pieces, scattered throughout a hospital room and down the halls.  I prayed for my dad to die, to be released from the shattered shell of a man he had been and the pain that wracked his body.  Though his death was my prayer, I did not wait in hope but in despair.  Yet, God was there.  I know He heard me.  My expectations were met.  You see, hope is the feeling that what is wanted will happen, a feeling of expectancy.  Many times we desire things to be, but there is no joy in the end result.  Hope is not optimism.  Optimism expects the best outcome or a cheerful result.  Hope fulfilled does not always bring delight.  Hoping my dad would die quickly brought great sorrow, even if it was the desired or best outcome.

And now I wait for my God.  I wait for Him daily to fulfill His purpose in my life.  I wait for Him to speak to my children and for His call on their lives.  The question that comes to my mind is do I wait in anticipation?  Do I believe that what I yearn for will happen?  Do I truly have hope?

“But as for me, I watch I hope for the Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me.”  Micah 7:7 NIV

It's In the Little Things

Coming home to find hydrangeas in a vase

Calling first thing in the morning to say, “I love you!”

Holding hands while driving to the store.

Doing another load of laundry after washing all the clothes—just because he needs a few items to take on the road.

Putting him first in my thoughts even though he is hundreds of miles away.

Woody is home six days out of the month if we are lucky. Building intimacy is nearly impossible with an absentee spouse. However, it is all the little things that bind us together—like gentle raindrops falling on my face, providing momentary relief from the sun’s scorching rays. The gentle words, the small gifts, the acts of service—all of these things are so mundane and menial; yet through these things we say “I love you. I value you. I desire you.”

Love isn’t always romance and rockets exploding, but it is always respectful; and we discover it’s true worth in the little things.

The Balance of Life

From March 25, 2012

Life hangs in such a fragile balance, ready to tip in either direction at any time. God taught me that last April. He gave me a whole new understanding of His compassion and mercy. He taught me that every breath that we will ever breathe is His. He alone holds our lives—and the capacity at which we live that life—in His hands. I own nothing; I know that more clearly today than I have ever known it.

We had been standing on our new neighbor’s front steps introducing ourselves to their family when all of a sudden I heard something unusual and turned to see my then 14 year old son fall backwards down the stone steps that just moments before he had been standing on. He landed with his head on the concrete sidewalk and his body contorted and stiff. His eyes were rolled back in his head and he was completely oblivious to the world around him. As I rushed to his side the thought that was rushing through my mind was, “He must have hit hard enough to cause head trauma!” And then after looking at the position of his body, I had to ask myself, “Did he break his neck?”

“Hunter!” I shouted his name over and over to no response. His arms were bent and stiff, not a normal position for someone that had merely fainted. For the longest five to ten seconds of my life he was unresponsive. When he regained consciousness, he was disoriented and without memory of anything that had happened prior to the fall. The neighbors helped me walk him slowly to our house where we continued to assess his condition. He could not remember even items that we knew should have been stored in long-term memory. Since he had hit his head, we worried about head trauma even though there was no external sign of injury. After about an hour of observing his confused state, we made the decision to take him to the emergency room.

By the time we arrived at the hospital, Hunter’s condition had improved; and by the time the doctor examined him, all of his memory, except for the hour prior to his fall, had returned. They performed every test imaginable on him—complete blood work up, CAT, EEG, blood pressure, UA, etc. Everything came back within normal ranges. They sent us home as puzzled as we were as to what had occurred.

I walked out of that hospital with a sense of complete amazement. As the images of Hunter’s fall played over and over in my mind, the one thing I realized was God’s protection had placed Hunter gently at the base of those stone steps. God’s hand had held Hunter’s head as he landed on the concrete sidewalk and prevented him from serious injury. Things could have been so much different. The impact of the fall could have easily caused him to break his neck or could have caused serious head trauma. Neither had taken place.

As I woke the following morning I realized that I could have been waking up to completely different results. I realized how precious life is and how little control I have over it. I realized, too, that my children were not mine, but a gift from God. As I went through my devotion that morning, three words came to mind—compassion, understanding, and tolerance. Carefully, I went through the Bible searching for verses that speak of God’s compassion. The Old Testament and the New Testament are full of statements exclaiming God’s mercy and compassion for those who love Him. I was overwhelmed as I realized that what I had received the previous night was just that—God’s compassion, understanding, and tolerance. He has tolerated my sin, He has understood my fallen nature, and when I was in pain, fearful for my dear son’s health, He had demonstrated compassion beyond comprehension. I am so undeserving of such amazing love!

We have since learned through follow-up testing (a couple days later, they called to inform us that the radiologist had found something on the CAT, that required further testing) that Hunter has a seizure disorder and a venous malformation in the left parietal lobe of his brain. We made the prayerful decision not to medicate him in spite of his neurologist’s recommendations, and he has been seizure free since that fateful day in April, another sign of God’s endless mercy.

I praise God for what I was given that night—a deeper sense of whom God really is, a deeper sense of what it means to be shown compassion. He felt my pain and knew my fear and responded with loving kindness. And even though the scales seem to be tipped in our favor for now, I know how quickly that can change; but I also know that God is holding every breath of our lives in His very capable, loving hands.

Fragile Strength

I love trail running, especially in the first hours of daylight when the rays of the sun cast long shadows on the earth and dappled sunlight dances on the trail. The morning is peaceful as the birds wake the woods with their bright, cheery songs.  “Time to wake up!” they seem to say.  I love the sound of my feet hitting the trail, crunching through dead leaves.  And then… I’m covered in a sinewy web that some poor, unsuspecting spider built from one side of the path to the other in an attempt to catch its morning meal; instead, it caught me, and as I wipe away the silky threads covering my face and arms, I am praying that I don’t have a small hitchhiker to finish up my morning run.

I am now more aware of my surroundings.  I would really like to steer clear of future spider webs.  I notice the sun glistening on several just off the path.  They look like threads of silver strung with tiny diamonds.  And in the middle of each web, a small, orange spider sits waiting for its prey.  As I finish my run, I am amazed at how many webs I see scattered through the woods.  They are countless. 

I can’t help but contemplate the work of these orb spiders and each fragile trap that has been meticulously built in order to survive.  Web building spiders have to rely on these silky, sticky threads for life.  Without a web, the spider cannot eat.  They cannot see well, but they feel the slightest vibration and can interpret it through the movement of the radii.  The web that I destroyed within seconds had been built during the night, when most web building occurs.  Most spiders must rebuild their webs nightly, and as they do, they may eat the remnant of the old web, recycling the silk.  If nothing else, spiders are diligent.  Everyday their webs are destroyed by animals or wind (or errant runners), and yet every night they rebuild.  They have to.  Without such diligence, they would die.

A spider web is designed in such a way that when one strand is broken, the web is actually strengthened. The web is constructed so that the spider will only need to do minor repairs. Winds will blow and small branches will break. The spider has a built in defense mechanism of sorts in order to cope with such issues. They are equipped to handle minor snags.

Marriage is very much like a spider’s web.  It is beautiful and fragile; it requires diligence and sacrifice. Strength has to be built into the very fiber of a union because trials will come; and when they do, strands will be broken. However, if the marriage has been correctly constructed, those troubles will strengthen the relationship rather than weaken it.  Our words and actions must be guarded. Within moments, errant words spoken in anger can destroy the magnificent threads that have been intricately spun together. The very thing created to sustain life becomes a tangle of tacky threads clinging to branches while the wind whisks away the remnants of the life you have knit together.

Every day work, family, and finances run through the paths of your life, fighting for attention—attempting to destroy what you have built. And every night, the work of rebuilding what has been lost must be done.  Without the web that has joined you together, the marriage will starve and eventually die due to malnourishment. You must diligently build together what the world destroys daily.

We can learn a great deal from nature and the fragile strength of the spider’s web. Take time to rebuild what is destroyed daily. Be diligent. The life of your marriage depends on the web you weave.