So This Is Love

So this is love, Mmmmmm

So this is love

So this is what makes life divine

I'm all aglow, Mmmmmm

And now I know

The key to all heaven is mine

My heart has wings, Mmmmm

And I can fly

I'll touch every star in the sky

So this is the miracle that I've been dreaming of

Mmmmmm

Mmmmmm

So. This. Is. Love.

When I was a little girl playing with my Barbie's, my Ken and Barbie were almost always Cinderella and Prince Charming, in terms of the shaping and unfolding of their love story in my active imagination ... and with the help of my 3-story Barbie Dreamhouse.

As I grew older and laid my Barbie's aside--although not until I was 12, or so--I transitioned to daydreaming about my 'one day' Prince Charming. I was, after all, raised on Disney films and my favorite was, of course, Cinderella. Thoughts of my prince riding up the sandy beach on his white steed and scooping me up with one arm--me all barefoot and long hair flowing in the summer breeze, as the sun was beginning to set across the ocean's horizon--would lull me to sleep many a night. (I was raised a southern California beach girl. My dreams always included the ocean and sandy beaches.)

Ah, the dreaming heart of a young girl and her visions of love shaped by fairytales and the hand-drawn imagineering's of Disney and his crew. Now girls daydream of their Romeos with Taylor Swift's Love Story the background music to their romantic imaginations.

What's the saying? "Young love. Ain't it grand!"

Actually, it is sweet and filled with all kinds of idealistic views of enchantment and princes and glorious rescues from the mundane world of homework or chores and grand adventures of conquering the world together through a love much deeper and stronger than anyone who ever lived before, or will ever live again.

But how come there's only side to that coined phrased? Why can't I recall one about old love just as easily? You know ... the time and trial tested kind of love? Surely that deserves a catchphrase all it's own. Right? Maybe when we get a few more Hollywood writers to capture our hearts with stories like Carl and Ellie's from UP (I could watch that opening scene a billion times over and never grow tired of it), the tide of a culture hypnotized by youth and the backwards notion that passion is reserved for young love will be begin to turn. Maybe.

I digress. All of this really came pouring out of me as I opened my blog to write about this week's Marriage Builder, an email blast from Marriage Today written by Jimmy Evans (one of my absolute favorites!). Today's email really got me thinking, and there were a few golden nuggets I just had to keep, while adding my thoughts--not to improve upon, but make personal.

Jimmy writes:

"In the eyes of God, our story was far more significant than two kids who fell in love and decided to get hitched."

Story. I love that word because I adore reading a well-written story. I've often thought of my life as a story unfolding--just take a look a the sub-header of my blog--but I've given far less thought to the fact that my life with Anthony, our marriage, tells a story just as well. Why have I restricted 'story' to an individual? For that matter, doesn't our family tell it's own story?

"God brought Karen into my life for ... purpose. God envisioned us as a couple long before we ever met. He knew exactly what I needed in a life partner. He created Karen with the gifts, talents, and attributes I most needed in a wife. He created me to meet her needs as well." [Jimmy Evans]

Most love stories we watch on film or read in books never touch this concept: that of finding a spouse that meets your needs instead of your wants. We speak in terms of the hair color we're attracted to, the build, those eyes. We even list out character traits such as sense of humor or fun or intelligent or handy. I wonder how my thoughts for my future husband would have been affected had I turned my prayers for him towards God's perspective instead of being so me-focused: "Can I please have someone who likes baseball and loves the outdoors and taking long walks on the beach?"

Thinking about it now, with lots of years of marriage under my belt, He probably would have said, "If he loves you, he will spend his time doing things with you that you love (and vice versa), but that's not how I look at partnership."

I never thought to pray for someone that would sharpen me and challenge me and encourage me to become a rockin woman of God. Someone who would have talents and skills and attributes that not only complimented me but were also different (gasp!) from mine. And maybe to pray for my future husband to have eyes like God, to see like He does, and have a heart always seeking to be more like Jesus.

Do you see the difference? I know that God created us visual creatures, men more so, and that part of the love connection equation includes attraction and chemistry. God has to draw us to someone initially, doesn't He? But what if our prayers were so focused on the heart of our future spouse--the way God sees (1 Samuel 16:7)--that we trusted God for the rest of our 'wants'? How much different might we enter the convenant of marriage?

"We understood little about what we were getting into. We barely survived those early years." [Jimmy Evans]

I deeply resonate with this in my marriage to Anthony. I was no more prepared the second time around than I was the first, I simply brought in years of mothering experience, lots of wounds and no greater perspective on the real purpose for marriage. I owe our survival to nothing more than God's massive covering of grace and a handful of godly people speaking into our lives at just the right moments.

"But here's what I know: If I had seen [Karen] as someone God created especially for me, I never would have disrespected her as often as I did in our first years together. I never would have taken her for granted. I would have loved her more, treated her better, and been more patient, thoughtful and tender. I would have listened better and worked harder to meet her needs. I would have cherished her, nurtured her, encouraged her, treasured her, and helped her become what God intended her to be." [Jimmy Evans]

Oh, I would have too with Anthony. I would have too. But here's what I know: God is our Redeemer (Isaiah 47:4) and is capable of taking any number of years we feel we may have survived and turning them into beauty (Isaiah 61:3). The story He wants to write with our marriages began with His heart for Adam and Eve:

"God formed Adam and eve to build a lifelong love affair with each other, to walk hand-in-hand in the Garden, to keep each other warm at night, to work out problems when they disagreed--to grow in love and learn how to navigate life together as a married couple." [Jimmy Evans]

I know that Cinderella will forever enchant the hearts of little girls because it's meant to--it's a fairytale. But for me now, I'd much rather have my {love} story look like Carl and Ellies.

 SO. THIS. IS. LOVE.

Visiting: The Grace Perspective

"It's amazing how much more mercy I give to people who struggle with sins I understand." [Michael Cheshire, Going to Hell with Ted Haggard, Christianity Today, December 2012}

Ouch! Did I really just read that? And why did I catch myself catching my breath?

"You guys can't forgive him and let him back into your good graces. Every time you talk to me about God, you explain that he will take me as I am. You say he forgives all my failures and will restore my hope, and as long as I stay outside the church, you say God wants to forgive me. But that guy failed while he was one of you, and most of you are still vicious to him." Then he uttered words that left me reeling: "You Christians eat your own. Always have. Always will."

These were just the first of many thoughts that reached right into my gut and yanked at the fibers of what I believe about grace and stirred the pot of how conditional it is in my life.

Going to Hell with Ted Haggard [What I Learned about Grace and Redemption Through my Friendship with a Christian Pariah] is one of the most thought-provoking pieces I've read in quite a while. Not that I haven't read my share, but this man, Michael Cheshire, just dared to put us face-to-face with the ugly side of grace (catch my sarcasm here because grace was never intended to be ugly).

Truth be told, I would bet my next paycheck (if I earned one) that most people can relate to one side of this story or the other: the Christian sinner cast aside for daring to sin or, if we're throwing all caution to the wind for the sake of utter transparency, the person who has done the casting. Shoot, we've probably all sailed in both boats at one time or another. I know I have.

I think the reason this article touched such a tender spot in me is because I remember the unveiling of this "scandal", the media coverage it received and the venom it produced. Sadly, once I was over my shock of learning that a pastor, of all people, (more sarcasm) could fall from grace so harshly, I remember thinking along the lines of this thought pointed out in the article:

"Most Christians would say God can forgive him, but almost universally people agree that God will never use him again."

I shudder now when I realize that type of judgment resided in my heart just over six years ago, but I smile in thankfulness when I recognize that God has brought me a long way on the journey of learning grace in my life, although I still have a ways to go. Who am I to label someone "unusable"? In other words, "Who died and made me God?"

Now I read stories like this one and nod my head in agreement with the author's next line:

"'Why can't God still use Ted?" After all, I reasoned, Jesus restored Peter after he denied Christ."

But unless I trail off my intended path for this particular blog, I will let the "usable or unusable" topic sit for the time being. (For the record, I would stand in the "usable" line if asked to pick a side.) No, what struck me the most about these particular phrases is two-fold: 1) the grace partnership with restoration and, more importantly, 2) the basic necessity for grace itself.

I have a lot of thoughts spinning around my head, and I could easily digress here, but I've been really challenged by the whole topic of grace as I give it and live it. What's hit me is the notion that I have no problem reading this article and wholeheartedly agreeing that Ted Haggard deserves grace and restoration, not because he's earned it but precisely because he doesn't have to earn it, should not be made to earn it.

And yet...

In familiar fashion to the opening quote of this blog, I can say, "It's amazing how much more grace I give to those whose lives I view from afar, but I struggle with it when you own a piece of my heart."

Why do I hand out grace on a silver platter to the man down the street, or the person on Facebook I barely know, yet my grace has its limits and its conditions when it's tested by the same person(s) time and again? Is it still grace if it has limits, which in reality makes it conditional? If grace is unmerited then who am I to say, "Today you are worthy, tomorrow you are not. The first few times I'll cover you in grace, after that, dude you're on your own."

I mean, really ... who am I?

I either believe in the totality of grace or I don't, right? I either believe it's truly unmerited, in all circumstances for all people, or I don't, right?

But what if I don't? Why don't I?

Like I touched on in my Visiting blogs from last week (Grief and Reality), I am in a place of examining everything, and grace is that place today. I don't have the answers yet, but I am--at the least--willing to ask the questions.

Every journey starts somewhere.

I Got You

I just got through reading this on Kate's blog,

"... and I thought about how God had heard my prayer. He had my back. He was and is working it out. He’s not tired. He’s not going to abandon the project before He’s brought it all to the complete redemption He’s meant for it. And none of this is because I’d been having regular “quiet times”, or praying as much as I could have, or being a particularly good anything. It doesn’t make sense, really. But He has me in a way I can hardly wrap my mind around…and He loves me. He is the same every day - faithful and true to His word - regardless of where I’m at."

and I had these thoughts:

• Do I always believe that God's got me, that He really has my back?
• What is about me that so firmly believes, without doubt, in the redemptive work of God in the lives of those I know, but I struggle at times to hold onto that for myself?
• How often do I stop to consider the fact that God never sleeps, even when He created me to?
• How long will it take for me to become convinced of who I am to Him and that He requires nothing of me except to abide in Him?
• Is it remotely possible to understand the depth and height and width and sheer volume of God's love for me ... even just a teensy-weensy bit?

As I write that last bullet point, the song "Let's Worship" by Deluge & Kari Jobe is playing; and I am reminded of how I wrestled with the concept of that song over a year ago in my closet for hours on end (especially the line "I will sing from the overflow of love in my heart"), playing it on repeat over 30 times before I got up. Coincidence? I think not. I digress...

"And none of this is because I’d been having regular “quiet times”, or praying as much as I could have, or being a particularly good anything." (Italics mine)

That line caught me in my heart as soon as it passed through my mind. And I immediately thought of my kids. And I understood the depth of that thought. The sheer volume of love weaved throughout it and wrapped all around it.

Do I require anything of my children in order to love them; to take care of them; to protect them; to provide for them; to pray for them; to help them; to meet their needs ... and even exceed them? 

No. And neither does my Daddy-God.

Although I wrote the above question as I thought of my children, I could just as easily go back and hear God's voice speaking it over me. After all, I think this thought because He thought it first. I love because He first loved me; and I've learned how to take care, protect, provide, pray, meet needs ... and even exceed them ... because He did (and does) it all first.

"I Got You."

That simple sentence is abounding in strength and swimming in fierce tenderness all at the same time. It makes me exhale in peaceful and smile at its sweetness. He's got me.

Grace Breeds Grace

"Grace breeds grace and gives you eyes to see the person, not the offense."

Good Lawd, Ris, you could have just written that sentence and it would have been enough to slay me, but then you followed up with these words:

"It was hard because my heart wanted to hold on to judgment, but God was prodding it towards grace. He almost always wants to do that if we let him."

"Our marriages are living, ever-changing exchanges between two imperfect people that need to daily draw from grace."

I asked HolySpirit this morning to speak into me perspective, because last night I went to bed frustrated and miffed, and in all honesty, woke up that way too.

And then I opened my email and saw the title of this article sitting there, waiting for me. "The.Gracious.Wife." I had to grab a fresh cup of coffee because I just knew I was going to be wooed out of my pity-party and into the wise lap of my Father who understands my emotions, but more importantly, desires to align my heart with His.

Sometimes alignment hurts. Even more so, it's humbling because it requires choice. I can choose grace this morning, or I can choose offense. Oh, how my flesh desires the second choice. But, the Spirit of God ... well, He knows the beauty of grace and sings over me loud enough to cover the grumblings of my selfish soul.