We don't start ministry for a few days so we have had time to relax, process last month, and talk about goals for this coming month. Having this time has been great. Today I got a chance to take a walk with my wonderful team leader Michelle. We were talking about Moldova and what we took away from it. I mentioned that I will miss the kids the most and we ended up talking about one little boy named Valentine. This kid was c-r-a-z-y. At times I thought he was a devil child. He ran around like crazy and was wild. He played rough, to the point where it was super annoying. BUT he had the sweetest side to him. Sometimes I would walk down the street and he would just run to me and jump in my arms and give me the biggest and best hug ever. It melted my heart every single time. Those sweet times made me forget all about his devilish ways. How could you stay annoyed with him after him being so sweet to you? I for sure couldn't and I started to love him. I actually looked forward to seeing him, even if he was in a crazy mood. He quickly became one of my favorite kids in Moldova. I was able to look past his craziness and just love him for who he was. While talking about this Michelle had an amazing revelation. She said I inspired this thought but really she deserves the credit 🙂 She was kind enough to let me blog about it. This situation I was in is kind of like God's situation. No matter how annoyed God might get with us or think oh my gosh why are you doing that? Why are you acting like that?! He loves us for who we are. He looks forward to meeting with us, even if we are having a bad day or have a bad attitude. He just wants to be with us and sees more than the bad stuff in our lives. He see's the good parts of us. His heart melts every time when we come running into his arms. Only his love for us is 1 million times bigger than what I could ever imagine. Interesting way to think about it right? My awesome teammate Carly pointed out that if God loves like I loved this sweet little boy, then that means I am loving like Jesus. I kind of had a lightbulb moment in my head when she said that. It seems so simple now, but I really hadn't thought about it in that way. I always say and think that I want to love like Jesus but sometimes question whether or not I'm doing a good enough job at it. Sometimes I trick myself into believing that loving like Jesus has to be something big, but I'm realizing more and more each day that it doesn't have to be anything huge. Truely loving like Jesus can come through the small actions. Actions like loving Valentine despite his craziness. Actions that I often overlook.
And also can I just take a minute to tell you how thankful I am for my teammates? They seriously are so wonderful. They always help me get my thoughts together and are a huge encouragement 🙂
