Today was our last day at the horse farm and as I walked away from Rhino and Milo I couldn’t stop the tears. Rhino and Milo are workers on the horse farm. Rhino is 34 years old and moves often to find work with his girl. Milo is a 21 year old and moved from Zimbabwe to find work.
You see, at the beginning of this month I was not fond of our ministry. We worked on a horse farm and scooped horse poop for 6 hours a day. I was miserable..at first. Then the Lord gave me a new way of thinking and a place that once was dreaded is now going to be so missed.
As I walked away from my new friends my stomach dropped. The feeling of a heart breaking goodbye wouldn’t flee. I asked the Lord to tell me how He was feeling in that moment, and what He wanted me to know/remember.
He said, “Keep loving hard.”
“But God” I said, “Leaving high school hurt, leaving canyon hurt, leaving Dalhart hurt, leaving Lesotho hurt, leaving this horse farm REALLY hurts. Will this ever get easier?” I asked expecting a heart warming reply.
“No, and I don’t want it to get easier. Loving hard is what I do and I want you to be more like me. When you love hard, leaving hurts.”
“But God” I pleaded “loving people hurts. It hurts when the goodbye comes.”
And He said, “You don’t love these men because of their past, you don’t love these men because of their circumstances, you don’t love these men because of their skin color. You love these men because they are people and you are really good at loving people.”
When He told me this I heard it but I didn’t really believe it. Sometimes God can be telling us something and it never really sinks in as true. I tried to tell myself it was my flesh that said that, but the Lord just wouldn’t let me forget. As I prayed into this conversation The Lord showed me how I don’t truly believe I am capable of loving because of past failed or broken relationships. People have always told me I am good at loving people, but I just say thank you and move on and never truly believe it.
Then it hit me. We were created to love. We were created for relationship. We were created for the hard goodbyes and loving hard. Why wouldn’t the enemy attack the one thing we were created for? Why wouldn’t he speak lies into this vulnerable spot? He wants to destroy what we were created to do. 1 John 4:19 “We love because He first loved us.”
I think this is for a lot of us. So today I encourage you, me, us to keep loving people and keep loving people hard.
Even if they have never given you a reason to love them, love them anyways.
Even if the “goodbye” isn’t too far away, love them anyways.
Even if they have hurt you, love them anyways.
Even if you don’t agree with what they believe or how they live, love them anyways for the simple fact that you were created to love.
God created us to love, and you know what, you might not receive the type of love back, but at the end of the day YOU did what YOU could.
Friends, we were created to love and love hard. The world really really really needs your love.
1 Peter 4:8
“Most important of all, continue to sow deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sins.”
