Hello, sweet friends!
LOVE the comments you’ve shared…thank you, thank you!!
Clearly, I did NOT make it through the 31 day challenge. October brought some unexpected challenges but many, many, MANY blessings as well! Life is changing for me (in some really big ways) and I look forward to telling you more about that. But, suffice it to say, a writing challenge wasn’t working in the midst of these shifts. This was evidenced by how many times my exhausted head would hit the pillow not thinking even ONCE of posting.
Life is life. Sometimes it’s not as predictable as we’d assume. Last October, a writing challenge fit. This October, it does not.
So this girl decided to take her own advice and rest when she could get it…be still with Him when time would allow…and soak Him up like a Mary instead of allowing her Martha-like tasks bury or embitter her.
And I’m so glad I did.
Which has got me thinking!!…
If God sees the heart, God knows the sincerity of our actions. Praise be to Jesus He sees us with loving eyes no matter what, but our sincerity actually has the ability to bless Him. Wow. I don’t know about you but I WANT to bless Him. His heart is so beautiful and so for me and I WANT to honor and glorify Him with my life.
I also want to love my loved ones with sincerity. I want them to see and feel the depth of my love when I offer any part of my heart. I want them to glow in the effects of that love after they’ve spent time with me. Because I really do love them THAT much!! I want to better their lives with my offerings.
For me, genuinely loving my God and my loved ones begins at the very Source. Without God’s love for me, I would spend my life drained and I would love half-heartedly…at best. That’s just me being honest. I can be all too human.
But I’m so grateful that when life is threatening to empty my tank, I know where to go to be refilled. As I allow Him to pour His sweet love into my thirsty soul, I begin to come alive again…and I love better.
We need Him to love well. We won’t get far without Him. We will feel used and abused and terribly under-appreciated when we seek our fill from others. Our loved ones aren’t meaning to leave us feeling this way. But they are human too. We all have needs. We all get tired. We all have trouble operating from genuine love when we do.
Suppose you do 10 loving things today for someone…
but you follow it up with complaints of how much they’ve tired you.
When the ones you’ve loved don’t enthusiastically respond to everything you’ve worked so hard to deliver, imagine throwing a passive-aggressive snap or two in their direction so they’ll acknowledge your discontent. Or imagine, at your wits end, listing for them all the things you’ve done…in case they were beginning to forget.
Do the things you did for them actually mean anything at that point? Or have you just made them feel like a nuisance?
Let’s be honest. We do this to each other. We do this to our God. But it’s ok…don’t beat yourself up. Just learn a better way.
HE is the better way, my friends. When you’re depleted, don’t take it out on the people you love. Allow yourself to sit with Him, gaze up at Him, feel His love.
You know, the Mary who did that in Scripture was the very same Mary who wept as she poured herself completely out on her Jesus. She couldn’t stop the tears. Couldn’t stop! They flowed freely from the depths of her affections. They were cathartic, cleansing and profoundly stirring to both her and her Love. She couldn’t stop blessing Him. Because she got it. She understood. Better than anyone else, she understood. Certainly better than Judas (who implied she was wasteful to pour such expensive ointment on the feet of Jesus).
Mary understood God’s love. And it healed her. And reached parts of her that had become cold and numb. Mary understood that everything good begins right there, at the very Source of love, and she was dramatically changed. No offering was too extravagant for her Savior. She annointed not out of obligation, but out of pure, genuine, unabated, unabashed love.
I want to love like that too. I want to understand the way Mary did. I want to love with all my heart.
And I know it begins with Him.
If you’re confused about His love, ask Him to reveal it to you. He loves to answer this prayer. And He will mend those places that seem unmendable. Give Him the time…
and you will see as Mary did.
You will love like her too.
Did you know that the perfume that Mary used was worth about $30,000!!! It was the only part of her dowry worth something so at that time, she was literally giving up her worth as a woman to praise Jesus out of a heart of adoration and love. She saw nothing else but Him! How amazing is that!!