We’re sitting here just outside of Bucharest, Romania, at a little ministry called Casa Shalom. All of O squad is here, and it has been an amazing time of re-connecting with those people I called loved.
I really do love these people. I don’t know how rare this is for a squad to feel so connected, and maybe it is all in my head. Yet I feel like there is a certain bond we all share, somehow. I sensed it in training camp, (and I was not alone) and I sense it even now as I wander about the ministry house and give random hugs to the people I’ve waited to see for a month.
I could go on and on about how amazing these people are, and how I truly do, love each and every one of them.
Is that possible? To love so much so fast?
I feel like it has gotten easier for me over the years, to love people, (whatever that means, really. . .) and even more so, to love those who for all intensive purposes, have a difficult time receiving or returning that love.
I don’t know, maybe I figure if I tell enough people that I love them, then maybe, just maybe, they might love me too?
So tonight, we had an O squad corporate worship time, and I could tell it was going to be a good one, simply because as soon as the first guitar chord had been struck, I was overcome in tears.
One of the members of our squad led worship tonight, and I found it interesting how every song had the theme of “love” behind it.
I spent the majority of the last year feeling like God was “breaking” me to make me better. I have since learned how to love others much easier. I guess I thought that I had been healed, because somehow I feel like to love someone, you have to know what it is like to be loved yourself.
Tonight, something broke inside me. Maybe it was always there, and I just ignored it, or thought it was better, but I came to the realization that I am still broken. I still have such a hard time loving myself. I have a hard time letting God love me. I still seek out the affection of others, like an unfaithful lover, and tonight, I felt God calling me back.
I sat there, on the floor of Casa Shalom, thinking about all the people whose attention I crave, all the while ignoring the one who craves mine. Not that I ignore Him, really. Rather, it is that parts of God that I ignore that I’m sure have hurt me so.
I don’t understand why it is so hard to accept the Love of a Creator, especially when somehow, He sees me worthy to do the work I have been called to do (whatever that is.) Why is it so hard to receive His love, when He is the only one who will be able to know me inside and out? What more can I do, that I haven’t already done, that will somehow MAKE God WANT to love me more?
Can I pour out God’s love on others, if I first haven’t let Him pour into me? What have I been giving if it hasn’t been God’s love?
So I don’t know. I came out of that meeting, feeling alone and loved, somehow. I have realized, that there is a TON more healing that my heart must endure. . . probably some grief too, to get to that point.
This is where I am. In Romania. Who knows where i’ll be later?
