“But the kind of love that God created and demonstrated is a costly one because it involves sacrifice and presence. It’s a love that operates more like a sign language than being spoken outright.” -Bob Goff
Love Does by Bob Goff. Read it, receive it, live it. This book is a great read, but also super hard. Quickly after beginning, I felt convicted. I wondered why I couldn’t love like this; a beaming ray of light leaking out love wherever I go.
Why does my joy have to be so sporadic? Why can’t it be steadfast?
These questions have zipped through my mind often. This time they stuck around, so I began doing some research with the Lord. I presented these questions to Him and haven’t received a clear answer yet, though I was taken back through my life.
I remember my parents not being together for the majority of my life. I never understood how other people had parents that were thriving in marriage. My mom was always working and my dad wasn’t around much. I almost felt like I was to blame for my parents separation because they had me when they were young. I felt like I had to prove to them I deserved to be loved.
The Lord helped me realize I’ve never really seen a healthy example of love until I came fully to Christ. Don’t get me wrong, I know my parents love me, but they’re human and they’ve hurt me. As unintentional as it may have been, it happened. As a result, I constantly felt like I had to prove to my friends, family, and the Lord that I was worth loving.
For 21-22 years I have constantly been seeking unconditional free love. If you ask anyone who knows me, they’ll vouch that I am a hopeless romantic. I love love. Everything about it. I love when you meet someone and you know the love is real because he or she challenges you to be a better person. Old things don’t matter as much as they used to. I love this idea that you can’t even remember what you did before this person came into your life. Without them your life was seemingly less colorful. Since meeting him or her, everything tastes better. You go to sleep with this love on your mind and you wake up thinking the same. You get this smile that just can’t be wiped away. You doodle your name with their last name all over your journals, wondering and picturing what forever could be like with them. You picture what your children could look like and what your future house would be like. All the things that come with being in love. You probably know what I’m talking about. My guess is you’re either going through it, have gone through it, or have seen it in the movies.
There’s this fairytale idea that despite the troubles you will go through Love conquers all.
I’ve come to realize I want that with Jesus first. I want to be so giddy about the fact that I am first loved by the Lord that I can’t keep quiet about it. I want to be so rooted in His love that everything else is overflow. That’s what He desires for me. To not sit still because He has done so much for me and in me that I want to shout it from the rooftop. I desire to love others better because He loves me so well.
Weekly I meet with Jesus and we watch the sunset together as our very own date. By far they are the best dates I’ve ever been on. I desire to be intimate with The Father because I’ve searched everywhere else for this kind of love. Before I met Christ I tried everything to fill this void, this longing for more. Now that I’ve found it I don’t ever want to let go.
I’ve always thought I needed to get right before presenting myself to Him because I thought He wouldn’t want to see me in a chaotic state. The truth is He desires us to come to Him in our mess so that we can testify how we transformed us. When we start living in approval that comes from Him and not living for His approval our lives begin to change.
He looked at me in my broken state and called me beautiful. His love meets us right where we are and pours right into our cracks, holes, and missing parts and fills us up. Once you receive it, you can’t help but react to it.
I desire to love better because Christ’s love does that. His Love Does.
