Thoughts about loving.
Today I was at food maxx with Molly, one of the girls I work with here at Sonshine. We go to food maxx to do a lot of the shopping for camp and so we pulled up and she ran in and I just stayed in the white ford truck that we usually drive around. I had the windows down and was listening to some Rosie Thomas and this old couple walks up to their car just a couple of stalls away from me right out side of the entrance of the store. This hunched over old man pushed the cart up to the back of the car while his wife waited on the curb. She shouted to him, just as cranky as could be, for him to put his hat on and he responded by walking over and they locked arms. He picked up her purse and and helped her down from the curb, he opened the car door and helped her sit and handed her back her purse. He closed the door and slowly walked to the back of the car and began loading the groceries into the trunk. She just remained in the car looking so frustrated with everything going on around her. I got busy singing along with Rosie but my attention was caught again as I saw the old man wearing his hat just a few feet away from the car putting the cart back at the front of the store. He walked back over and placed his hat inside the car, got in and they drove away.
Thursday nights here at camp are really special. We bring all the churches that are here together and we hold program for them. They all participate in skit competitions and all that kind of fun stuff and we also have some one from Team Barnabas (the team that I work with) share a testimony and one of the members of the driver team prepares a message for the group.
Last night Elizabeth shared her testimony. I worked with her through out the week in preparing but was still quite touched on Thursday night as she shared. She talked about how when Jesus was on the cross he was saying “I love you this much” with his arms spread open wide. Amazing. Yet, when we hear that our response has become just “thank you”. Her challenge was that knowing Jesus is different than loving him. And that our response to loving him is thank you but also should grow deeper into a desperate loving back.
When I was watching that old couple as they interacted I was frustrated with the old lady at first because the old man was being so sweet and taking care of her and showing her so much love just by simply wearing the silly hat and she was just responding by being mad even though he was only walking in the sun for a moment. I started to think about my response to love, in context of the message I heard the night before and also in seeing this couple interact. It was clear after thinking about it a little bit more that the lady obviously just loved her husband and therefore cared about his health and keeping his noggin out of the sun. And it was very clear in the husbands patience and care for his cranky wife that he too must have deeply loved her. And most of all it is clear that God deeply loves us, enough to send his son to die as a message to all that he wants to be in loving relationship with us.
Sometimes I feel like I am bad at responding to love. Like the old lady I say things because I love but maybe not in the most loving of way or maybe I forget to say I love you all together. I often wonder if the people I love the most know to the fullest extent of how much I do love them.
As I begin to understand the deeper and deeper meaning of Gods love for me I hope that my response is more than just a “thank you” to him but more of a falling on my knees and declaring of my love. I want to really respond by walking in the truth of what it means to be loved by God and to love him back. Of course I am thankful… but I hope as the truth of Gods love settles deeper in my heart I would respond_ with love. Love for the father and also love for those around me.
In this past season I have been trying to be very intentional with being thankful and in this next season along with that I want to learn to really walk in response to Gods love. As I walk in response to Gods love my prayer would be that I would learn to better love those around me.
