The secret to love...

The secret to Love- Thoughts by Tedd Dekker

I came across this today and it brought a new light to Love and I can't stop thinking about it. I thought I'd share!

Have you ever noticed that when you "fall in love" for the short time when you are 'swept-away' the one toward whom your affection is directed can do no wrong? Your judgement of them is blind, you see only beauty, and you feel like you're in heaven... Maybe it's a beautiful gift from our Father, a slice of heaven hard wired into us as a reminder. Maybe its the closest thing to heaven we can feel in these bodies. 

Some trivialize this state and call it "infatuation" as if those first feelings are substandard to "real love." 

What if we have it backwards? What if during that early non-judgmental period we are have a glimpse of what following Jesus teaching not to judge really is like? What if that's how God feels about you? Or try this: Imagine falling in love with everyone you meet... I mean, really... seeing them beyond all judgement. You would be one happy camper, wouldn't you? I'm not talking about romance as such, but crazy, can do no wrong affection. Perhaps the kingdom of heaven among us is such a place, here and now. 

Who here wants to fall in love over and over and over and forever? 

Thoughts by Lisa:

I know thats how Jesus loves us, and what stops us from doing the same, or at least make an effort of living this way. Looking at those around and not seeing thier flaws first but seeing love through non-judgemental eyes. I need to start living like this, I know how been challanged and will choose not to be the same again.

LOVE COVERS ALL!!!

Love is Vulnerable

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in the casket safe, dark, motionless, airless it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable. C.S. Lewis 4 Loves.

Thanks Tam for helping me re-find this quote. It has brought me great comfort through a week that has felt tougher than the "tough mudder." As some of you know I did the "tough mudder" last June. It is challenging obstacle course where your body is pushed to its furthest physical limits. But heartache and emotional pain are a million times harder to deal with than any physical pain, at least in my experience.

Everyone deals with heartache in some form or another. I love how C. S. Lewis points out so poignantly that our hearts can be broken even by "an animal." How many people have felt the deep sorrow of a pet dying?

Then there is the pain of friends moving away (we miss you, Lisa!). Friends who get married or are preparing to get married like lovely Miss Danielle. I am genuinely happy for the changes in these people's lives. I see they are being led into amazing new opportunities and adventures, but there is also a part of me that is deeply saddened. There's a part of me that suddenly feels lonely and perhaps afraid of a new season that is coming. Change is always hard on my heart.

I always try to be brave and strong through changes. But my ultimate test came when a young man I respect, look up to and would have to confess I am very interested in, hurt me. I realized that the man that I had perhaps idolized is not always sensitive, sweet or kind. When I look back at what happened, it probably had more to do with the fact that men and women seem to speak very different languages. No, not intentionally. He had no idea.I had opened my heart to him at least in part, and he seemed to squish it, or at least ignore it and not understand my words and actions. I went from holding him on the highest pedestal to being angry at him. How does that happen so quickly eh?

But in the midst of my "heartbreak," I am grateful that I had the grace to go to God with my pain. Of course I started my regular complaints about how long I have waited for my husband. Jesus always seems to know how to bring me comfort. Last time I reminded him, "I have been waiting for 32 years for this promise of my husband!" I felt like Jesus gently commented back, "Well, I have been waiting for 2000 years for my Bride to be unified and to love me."

I began to look upon the One who was willing to make Himself vulnerable for me. The one who was willing to have His heart ripped open. I'm speaking of Jesus Christ. Some people have said that when He was crucified, He actually died of a broken heart not from the physical pain. When a spear was driven into His side blood and water flowed out, which is typical of anyone who died of heart break. I can think of no more of a vulnerable place for God's Son to put Himself than with His arms stretched wide open on two sticks of wood between heaven and earth. His body bruised and battered, pulverized by pain and even torture. I know it is a horrific picture, but perhaps it is also a place of healing in that there is no pain that He cannot relate to. God knows our physical pain, but He also knows our relational pain. He was rejected by those who had been His friends. He was betrayed by Judas and even by an expression of intimacy-a kiss.

We still so often reject Him. We chose to walk away or ignore His love. But if we desire, we can still look up at Him and hear Him tenderly ask, "Will You receive what I have done for you?" He has made Himself vulnerable to us. He has bared His heart wide open. He will never deny the love that He has for us. He has chosen to forgive us. He has chosen to continue loving us and make Himself vulnerable despite the heartache we have caused Him by our selfishness or even simply our ignorance.

The Fight Is ON!!!

I’ve been battling through some mindsets and heart attitudes recently when it comes to being single. I’ve battled with some un-godly beliefs that I will be the last to ever get married.  Extreme I know, but it’s how I really felt. After moving from house to house, roommate to roommate because they were all getting married, it started to feel like I was going to be last. I have to say I wasn’t pleased with this idea and it used to pain me to the core to even think about it. Two years ago I decided to begin to deal with these unbeliefs and stop cursing my current circumstances because of past experiences.  I broke the things I spoke over my life and decided to disagree with it all. I became friends with quite a few AMAZING single women that were all my age and instead of thinking they’ll all get married before me, I started just liking my life, my friends and my future. Recently I have been tested in this thinking as some of my single girlfriends became “un-single” and I was left to face the lies. Was I going to start believing them again; was I going to throw my hands up in the air and say “ SEE GOD I TOLD YOU THIS ALWAYS HAPPENS TO ME”. Or am I going to start standing up to these ridiculous thoughts and put them in their place.  I decided to fight. The battle was on. I have had days where I jump in the car and drive somewhere quiet and just cry it out, and then start yelling at my heart.  If you were a fly in that car you would hear things like “Heart, you’re going to get this, you’re going to get that there is JOY in this season.” Or something to the tune of “ That’s it Lisa, you need to snap out of this pity party and start realizing what you have in the now”. I came to realization that if I can’t be content, joyful, loving life in the now, in this season, I am not going to be any of those things when I’m married. It has nothing to do with being “single” or “married”, it has everything to do with being present in the now season and living for today. I don’t want to go into my next season not feeling content and satisfied and loving my days, because marriage or a husband won’t fix that. Yes I had heard this all before but in the last 3 months or so my heart has gotten it...... I get it! I want to be satisfied today and not hoping for what can satisfy me in the tomorrow. My goal is to look back when I’m married and say that I lived my “single” years to the MAX. I lived them with fullness and joy and peace and kindness and love and a grateful heart.

I can tell you with a full heart that I am so full of joy in my season, that it isn’t something that I think about daily, or if I think about it, I don’t see all those who have what I am longing for, but I see a life that is a GREAT adventure full of HIS plans and purpose and they are SO MUCH greater than mine! I haven’t felt this peaceful and at ease in my “single” season ever and I am SO THANKFUL that I got it, and am still getting it. My heart obeyed me and submitted to the idea that I need to love this time, right here, right now, with those surrounding me.

Let's break through in our lives. Let’s conquer those mindsets that hold us back! Be bold in taking control of your thoughts and emotions and commanding peace, life, God’s thinking and understanding. We need to be people that live contented in the now, the here, with whom He’s placed around us. Let us not look back on seasons and wish we enjoyed them more, appreciated them more, lived them fuller!

grace is enough

Peace in the struggle

to find peace

comfort on the way

to comfort

and if I shed a tear I won't cage it

I won't fear love

and if I feel a rage I won't deny it

I won't fear love

- Sarah McLachlan

My journey right now is that of grief and grace. It seems I am presently a woman of few words yet constant thoughts and emotions fill my days. There is no "how to" when it comes to healing from the loss of someone you love.

My heart feels wrecked but as much as this time is difficult, it is beautiful. 

I have been thinking about loss so much lately. I have been thinking about the passing of my mom, I have been thinking of losing my boyfriend last month.

And as I feel this loss and experience grief, the more I realize:

 His grace is enough.

 It must be. It has to be.

Grace falls and changes everything; it covers over all. Grace covers over my worst fears and insecurities, my greatest struggles and inadequacies, my biggest mistakes and poorest choices, my deepest heartache and sorrow. 

This gift is far more beautiful than I give it credit for, far more splendid than I know what to do with.

I find the more I allow this grace to fall and cover over my most wounded places, the more I am able to:

Surrender.

Letting go can be the hardest thing to do yet in that beautiful moment of total surrender, when you learn to release the very thing you don’t know how you will live without, you start to see and feel and understand that God will not return it empty. He has never returned anything empty to you before so why would He now, when it hurts more than it ever has before?

He just wouldn’t. He just won't. 

This "letting go" and "letting God" means serious business. It means your life will never be the same again. It means that at some point, likely sooner than you can imagine, you will look back on that moment of surrender and realize how absolutely essential it was; in order for you to heal and learn and grow, in order for something great to unfold.

And so... you are reminded over and over again how sweet the gift of grace, how it sustains you when all else feels lost, when you feel so lost.

Oh sweet grace, it has saved you, it has saved me. Once again.

But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

- 2 Corinthians 12: 9-10

"What we have once enjoyed we can never lose,

all that we love deeply becomes a part of us."

-Helen Keller 

THIS sting

THIS sting 

it’s this longing to share

this life adventure

with ONE other

ah

a refuge from

THIS storm

yet as quickly as he can come

so as quickly as he can go

I must learn to grow in

this spot

place flowers, colour and love

into this hole, this space

nothing, no one else

can fill

to detach from this longing

for now

knowing this pain I feel

will not go away

not now, not yet

nearly that

the more I strive

with helpless attempt

to avoid, or even heal, move forward

the more it calls

for me to stop

to hold, to cradle

THIS pain

wave after wave

of hopeless grief

must i?

why not numb with

man, alcohol, money, drug

please, some fix

quick?

no

no

nothing can fix

THIS

my mother

IRREPLACEABLE

you

are

it’s your love

i still feel

nearly haunting me

as you seep 

from the depths

of my being

can’t I just escape for a time

fall away from here

from reality

from grace

drown for a time

in this sorrow

wallow for awhile

in this pity?

how can i

how will i?

truly rise up again

 to breathe

live

drink deep

rejoice

when

you, MOM

no longer

breathe

live

walk

here

can’t i

rewind

for a time?

see you

feel you

hold you

no

no

instead

YOU

ah yes

it is YOU

whispering

tam

little one

FEEL

more and more

THIS sting

in time

when it heals

grows

changes

becomes…

your life

story.

joy

laughter

light

gratitude

will reign

once again

it is time now

woman

to take

those brilliant flashes

etched

 in your memory

her face

her eyes

her smile

her SUNSHINE

and learn

to live

again.