A few things have marked my time in Turkey: the warmth and hospitality of the people, the country’s beauty and the fatherly love showered upon us by our contact. Everyday he comes to pick us up, he walks into the room with warm eyes and a bright smile. Talking so quickly in Turkish and even though we can’t understand his words we know exactly what he is saying…”good morning, how are you, did you sleep you well?” And it is the same at the end of the day, well wishes and blown kisses as he drops us off (in between, Google Translate is our best friend!).
The final month of the Race has been a whirlwind of fun, opportunity and love shown to us mostly through our contact. We’ve been lavished with fun outings and rest and time to process the last year and all of the big changes we are going to experience in the coming weeks. All still with the chance to serve and love the people of Turkey through our different work this month. It’s a perfect mix I could never have dreamt up on my own.
It’s the embodiment of God’s love for us.
In my experience with many different Christians over my lifetime, we each tend to have our own hang ups with a certain aspect of God’s identity. Whether it be Him as a father, a romancer, a judge, or any other of the infinite characteristics He possesses. We each struggle to understand some part but I think the thing that every Christian struggles to fully wrap his or her mind around is God’s love for us.
His deep, unconditional, unending love for each one of us.
I know we don’t fully understand it (myself included!) because if we did it would radically change the way we live as his followers and as his children. We strive and compare and measure our lives by standards so far outside of what we’ve been created to do. We judge ourselves and others by the harsh measures of this world; forgetting that we have each been made in the image of our Creator for a unique and specific purpose only that person can fulfill.
What would our lives look like if we understood more fully the love God has for us? How much more would we engineer our lives to please Him and bring Him glory rather than to achieve greatness in the eyes of our neighbors?
As humans we expend so much time, money and energy on finding love or making ourselves lovable all the while we have the promise and the gift of the greatest love we can ever experience within our grasp every day. We just have to accept it, make ourselves available to it, and finally rest in it.
God doesn’t pour out his love upon us with great expectations of what we will do in return. He offers it to us as a beautiful gift of peace and freedom and rest through the sacrifice of his son Jesus.
When he tells us in Matthew 11:30 that his yoke is easy and his burden is light, He is telling us that we don’t have to fight for love and acceptance and the things of this world because the life he created us to live transcends all that this world has to offer.
Even as a single, 28 year old, who hopes one day to find love, I know now I will never live a greater love story than the one written for me 2,000 years ago on the cross.
The love we are given in Christ is a love unlike anything we can ever know on earth. It’s a love that can’t be replicated, only imitated. And a love that I know will take more than a lifetime to fully comprehend.
This lesson in love is one I know I will have to learn repeatedly but I am so grateful for the clarity and freedom it offers me now as I prepare to return to a world so familiar and yet so foreign. A life that was once all I knew and now have the exciting challenge of weaving together that life with the adventures, lessons and changes of the past year.
It’s a task I know may be difficult but I’m so grateful to do it wrapped in the deep love of the Father.
