Lovestruck

This week I've been struck by love. The power and the reality of it, really. Some of you will laugh at this, but so did I, so laugh away. I mentioned that Jonny is gone. Monday, we moved him in and said goodbye. It didn't hit me until I drove home from work late that night...and then it really hit me. Men probably aren't so much like this, but I think women react more strongly to the fear of losing a close relationship, even if it's not lost. This was me -- worried that the close friendship I enjoyed with him would change forever. He was moving on, I wasn't. Devastating, right? Although this isn't reality, it's still a fear. So my tears were not of grief, but of excitement for him, pressing through necessary change, a little bit of loss and a little bit of fear.

I'm not even his mother (just his sister), and there's a major lump in my throat. I don't understand how all mothers don't just plop on the floor in sackcloth and ashes for weeks after their children leave. Not to belabor the point, but I have been amazed at how deeply I feel concern and hope for him since he left. I want to know he will be okay, that God will shield and guide him, that he will not grow discouraged. Psalm 71:3, "Be to me a rock of refuge, to which I may continually come; you have given the command to save me, for you are my rock and my fortress." And God will be that.

When you feel deeply about one thing, it usually spills over. As I've thought about the relationship with my brother, I've thought about all my relationships. It's funny how a little bit of pain seems to resurrect past pain you didn't fully deal with but buried anyway.

Back to my topic: love. In the past couple weeks, God has allowed me to reconcile two very important relationships that were damaged a while ago and never mended. My understanding of love is so limited: I thought I had lost them, or at least permanently cramped their ability to forgive and love me fully, again. The abundance and readiness of their forgiveness overwhelmed me. And it led me to one place -- the Cross -- that sacred place where Jesus answers every cry for forgiveness and love with a shocking answer: it is completely, wholly, forever, Finished. There is no hesitation to pour out all love and to spread his welcoming arms wide to forgive his Beloved.

"But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ--by grace you have been saved--and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus." Ephesians 2:4-7. Full, unlimited forgiveness and love.

Life is incredible and rich. And all because of love.