Lessons on love

Working in ministry has required adjustments in my thinking about the separation between the "personal" and the "professional." For example, when setting goals for 2007, I was required to make three kinds: work, faith, and personal. The first two I had no problem with...things that I needed to DO, and things that I wanted to see God do but couldn't do myself (understandable since I do work for a church). The third category made me very uncomfortable. What business was it of my "job" to know my personal goals? Isn't that the point, they're PERSONAL?! So I tried to think of the least personal thing I could write and still be fulfilling the requirement. What I decided on was trying to gain a better understanding of God's love...generically phrased and something no one could argue with, but it's turned out to have been pretty profound. This is what I've come up with:

When I'm feeling unloved, the quickest way out of that pit is to find someone in need of love and do something to show love to them. I have yet to find a time that behaving lovingly didn't work to stop those "nobody loves me" blues, but when depressed it can be tough to look outside myself and work up the energy to reach out. God often uses other people to show his love, and I need to make sure that I'm a part of that to the people around me.

I try to identify the love languages of the people around me, then make a greater effort to love them in that way. I also try to recognize times when they're expressing love toward me in their own language and appreciate it, even though it's not my own primary love language. I'm working through this with Justin (recently 4yrs) whose primary language seems to be physical touch. Bumping into me as he walks by is not a loving gesture in my mind, but for him it's connecting with me and loving me. There are certainly limitations to what I will allow, but recognizing that he's loving me with that bump makes me less annoyed and less likely to reject his offering just because it's not the way I would have chosen to be loved. I receive love most easily through quality time, which is really tough since people (and me) are so busy. Rather than feeling like no one loves me because I haven't spent time with them, I need to appreciate the hugs, notes, little gifts, and acts of service that people are frequently loving me with.

I need to do the same with God. Just because I don't FEEL loved by him, doesn't change the fact that he loves me. Sadly, the "quality time" that would make me feel loved is completely up to me, and therefore it's often my own fault if I'm feeling unloved. I also need to stop chasing the "feeling" and settle into the knowledge that I am loved whether I feel it or not.

I heard Sheila Walsh speak at this year's Women of Faith conference and I bought her book "God has a Dream for Your Life." In it she talks about when God was freeing the Hebrews from Egypt and he sent the Angel of Death to kill the firstborn sons in each household. The only way to be spared was to paint the doorpost with blood. Then she reminds the reader that the Angel never knocked on the door to find out what sins the people inside had committed that day or what type of people they were... the blood was enough. When God looks at me, he doesn't see the mistakes I've made or the ways I've failed, he only sees Jesus' blood and I'm accepted and loved based on that. For me, shame is one of the biggest obstacles toward intimacy with God, but when he looks at me he doesn't see any of it. I've known that story since I was tiny, but only now do I recognize it as a picture of my own salvation. It's awesome!

The year since I set this as my goal has been a really tough one, excruciating at points, but rather then wallow or lash out I've come to terms with the fact that no matter what I've been through or what I've done God has never stopped loving me... I just didn't always recognize it.

I think that's enough learned for one year!