Reckless Love

I heard “Reckless Love” for the first time about three weeks ago, and have been listening to it almost daily since.   Every time I listen, it’s truth penetrating deeper and deeper into my soul, shifting my understanding of love.

Reckless.

Love.

They seem like oxymorons.  I’d come to view love through the 1st Corinthian definition, and this new view has been grating into that, creating a holy dissonance.

On a day dedicated to the celebration of the sweet side of love, the patient, kind, selfless love.. I find myself so much more grateful for this expanded definition.  Being completely honest…. It feels a little reckless of God to give me all these people to love knowing the absolute weakness of my humanity.  On a day where social media lights up with sweet words and full hearts, I’m feeling the strain and shame that my heart isn’t more ‘in it’.   I picked up the chocolate, and wrote the words in the card…. and meant every single syllable, because I love them…. but the world, I feel, is finally honest enough to appreciate that it is ALL a struggle, and sometimes we’re just tired.

Being single is a struggle.

Being married is a struggle.

Being infertile is a struggle.

Having kids is a struggle.

Sometimes it feels a little reckless of God to give us our individual struggles.  My kids deserve perfection, my husband deserves perfection, my friends, sisters, parents…. They all deserve perfection, and they get me instead, with all my imperfections.  They deserve someone that poured over the perfect card for hours, and scoured the world for the perfect way to show that they each mean the absolute world to me.  I want to be someone that WANTED to wake up before my family to set a beautiful table of delicious food, to start our day around.  Instead, at 5:15, I barked at all of them to get back to their rooms until 7.  Murmuring back Happy Valentines Day at their shrieks of delight over the treats I set out on the table the night before, ashamed that I couldn’t muster more enthusiasm.  When I lay in bed at night worried that my sharp rebukes should have been the softer corrections I read other’s are able to deliver, I challenge God that it was reckless for Him to trust me to steward their lives well…

“I believe in you”

His Love truly is perfect.  It wrecks me in all the best ways.  It will stretch you, until you’re sure you will snap…. it may even break you.  Which just boggles the mind… because why?  Until the rebuilding begins, until strength, and faith, and joy, that surpass all previous understanding and capacities emanates from within, and fear SLOWLY begins to dissipate.  Leaving us more in His image.  I want to love like that, and He believes I can do it.  Lord, make it so.

To my loves…. not just the ones under my roof, but the MANY of you…. Happy Valentine’s Day!  There is NO one I could imagine navigating the insanity, that is this world, with other than each of you.  Some of your struggles I know better than other’s, but I believe in you, and I believe in the One that loves us both better than we could ever love each other.  Praying you feel loved, seen, and appreciated today!  xoxo