We so often describe love as some unatainable goal or a state of mind or a mushy feeling we experience every once in a while. We throw around the word love like it has no more significance than the word hamburger. When does love get the credit it deserves? Love is about caring for another human being, not necessarily a significant other, but anyone. A stranger walking down the street. Your parents and family. Your friends. Love is about giving someone the affection and devotion they deserve even when they don't do everything right, and especially when it seems like they do everything wrong. Love is about God. Love IS God. What greater act of love is there than Him giving His ONLY son for us on the cross, simply because He loves us that much.
Titus 3:5 "he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy..."
We did nothing to deserve it, and there is nothing we can do to deserve it. Not from God, not from anyone. Love is a choice. Love rises above all.
My family has struggled financially for a few years now, and I remember the day when wanting to work was the deciding factor in quitting softball my senior year of high school. Yes, I was already burnt out and the sport didn't hold the same spark for me as it used to, but I would have played simply because it was my senior year. Money won out. I remember the days when I would worry about my family and our house and if we were going to be able to keep it or not. I remember the days when I would wrack my brains trying to understand what had happened to my old life. Nowadays, money means absolutely nothing to me. Yes, in a lot of ways it is necessary to survive. I am not naive. I just know that in the end, you don't get to bring it with you. I refuse to slave away at a job I don't necessarily love so that I will have a hefty retirement fund waiting for me at the end of my working life. I want to spend my life glorifying God with a husband who loves me for who I am. I want to show the world and those who I love that life is about experiences and recognizing those moments when God's presence is tangible around us. My mom is coming here in May even though money is extremely tight still at home. Money comes and money goes, but experiences like she will get to have here come rarely, if never at all. If we lose the house I've spent my entire life in, so be it. If I lose some of the luxuries I've been blessed with my entire life, so be it. I have a beautiful and incredible family who loves me, a soulmate that I know in my heart that God made just for me and God, who gave the ultimate sacrifice for me. How could I ever complain about having to work a few extra hours at Chick-fil-a, when people are starving in the streets around me right here in San Salvador? How could I ever question my mother's money spending methods when I've been within inches of a malnourished baby, who's skin was stretched so tight over it's hollow little cheek bones it almost didn't look human? How DARE I, have the nerve to consider my self anything but rich for having the ability to live an educated life full of love and Jesus?
Leah went home to the States today, because her father is in a coma in the hospital. Even though she has been scarred and maintains a rocky at best relationship with this man, she left without hesitation to be by his side. That is real love. Loving someone, no matter what they've done to you and no matter how much you just don't want to go through the sacrifice of love anymore, will never stop being worthwhile in the end. That is Jesus inspired love. Love is the end goal. Not money. Not nice things. Not even stability in a world and a life that is so fleeting compared to the promise of eternity. Love and a life that represents our passion for God is what we should be aiming for, despite what modern day society has deemed necessary for living "the good life".
1 Corinthians 13:1-3 "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not loved, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing."
All For His Glory,
Taylor
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