I don't want to toot my own horn or anything, but I am actually quite amazing at missing people. My Dad traveled a lot for his job, so I missed him when he was gone. When I moved to college, I got really good at missing my entire family. When I fell into friendship with my college roommates, it was the same story. I would miss them over breaks. We were a little pathetic actually, we missed each other so much. Now two of them live in different states (Tennessee and North Dakota) with their husbands and one lives two hours away, and I miss them still. I have perfected the art of missing people.
To miss someone is not to love them.
Missing someone is much easier than loving them. All you have to do is miss them. In missing people, I have found that I usually romanticize them. I imagine the best versions of themselves and that is what I miss. I miss Caitlin, my college roommate, the most when I am lonely and need a 2am heart to heart. I miss my Mama most when I need someone to scratch my back and dry my tears. I imagine that these people, who I miss so desperately, meet my needs to my exact specifications, that all of my worry and stress and loneliness is resolved just by their presence.
Loving someone is complicated. Love is often messy. Love is totally irrational and, at times, a little bit obnoxious. Love is also patient. Love means exhibiting patience in ways that make me want to scream. Love means having grace with someone when they pull the unexpected on you. Love means putting your needs on hold to make sure the other person is cared for. Love often means pushing your plans aside.
Recently, I have realized that I specialize in missing Jesus. I romanticize Him and speak about Him and even pray to Him as if He's living in the house next to Matt, six hours away. I miss Him most when I am frightened or in dire need of guidance, or when the empty inside me is gnawing at my heart.
I want to love Him.
On an average day, I'd say that I do love Jesus. Only my love for Him lacks integrity and depth: it takes and never gives, or when it does give, it does so slowly, like a child handing over his toys his mother has just confiscated for bad behavior. There is evidence of God's love for me everywhere, the cross being the frontrunner of grand, sweeping, bold romantic gestures. I hear and see echoes of His love in word and in deed in the body of believers, but it's almost as if I am numb to it. I witness it happening, and I think, oh, that's wonderful, and I go back to my normal, self-involved routine.
I think, more than anything, that was my selling point for The World Race. As I read blogs of current racers, it occurred to me that God's love is, in fact, very real, and that it was overflowing from their hearts and into their ministry. It was changing lives and breaking down barriers in a way that only God's love can do, and I'll be honest, I wanted that. I wanted it so badly it compelled me to consider the World Race a viable option. To consider it God's way of disconnecting me from my busy agenda and opening the door for me (as any true gentleman would) so that I could come inside and celebrate with His body. So that I could feel His love coursing through my veins.
I'm really tired of missing Jesus. I want to LOVE Him.
“This love of which I speak is slow to lose patience – it looks for a way of being constructive.
Love is not possessive. Love is not anxious to impress nor does it cherish inflated ideas of its own ideas. Love has good manners and does not pursue selfish advantage. Love is not touchy. Love does not keep account of evil or gloat over the wickedness of other people. On the contrary, it is glad with all good men when truth prevails. Love knows no limits to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; it can outlast anything. It is, in fact, the one thing that stands when all else has fallen.” – Elisabeth Elliot
Grace and Peace,
Sarah
