Usually I don't post something from my journal unless it's been a while...but today is different. This is from this morning:
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
So many things, Jesus; please let them
all come forth in light of Your love and let me know freedom in Your
truth.
Galatians 2:20
Christ…loved, and
gave Himself up
Ephesians 5:2
Christ…loved, and
gave Himself up
Ephesians 5:25
Christ…loved, and
gave Himself up
Echoing now in my mind are the words of
many mothers…
Cindy, Jess's sweet mom, saying to me
in her kitchen,
"Not many people love
sacrificially without having to."
And also, my thoughts along Hill Road
in Mumbai (fitting),
when the young boy yelled for me,
and, knowing what he wanted,
I kept on walking,
not even turning my head in his
direction,
entrenched in the bitter thought of,
"you all have taken enough from me
already."
But Your thoughts were so much higher.
Much higher, and much sweeter:
"No one takes My life, for I give
it up on My own accord."
John 10:18
Hours ago, my dear friend's words in the night
at an hour she couldn't sleep,
but only cry with sorrow for the
sadness of her mother's heart
that knew her daughter would be leaving
soon:
"Mothers give so much without
getting hardly any of it back."
And Jess Paulraj…
on a blog about her own mother,
emphasizing how she didn't try
to makeshift a life preferable
to her desires on earth,
but rather
stored up treasures in heaven
by imparting Christ to her daughter,
who, in following His lead,
left her nest
and went far to the
other
side
of the world.
And now she is a mother
to two sons.
One, to whom she gave birth.
The other, grafted in
from the corner of a small rural hospital
in northern India.
((Interjection:
f you haven't read about their journey, please do.
Over $100,000 was donated
by friends, strangers
within a week
to give Adam
life-saving surgeries.
And now she is a mother
to two sons.
One, to whom she gave birth.
The other, grafted in
from the corner of a small rural hospital
in northern India.
((Interjection:
f you haven't read about their journey, please do.
Over $100,000 was donated
by friends, strangers
within a week
to give Adam
life-saving surgeries.
This coming spring his little body
will undergo more surgeries.
And they will need more help.
Please, if nothing else, read
and be blessed by the love they are living,
and the story He is telling of His redemption
with their very lives.))
will undergo more surgeries.
And they will need more help.
Please, if nothing else, read
and be blessed by the love they are living,
and the story He is telling of His redemption
with their very lives.))
I consider all these things and think
--
I have much more to know of love,
much more to know of You.
Voluntarily sacrificial…
all these thoughts emerged when Suzei
asked to borrow my car again,
and to ask if I "could go on one
more adventure."
Flashbacks of sitting idle in parking
lots while their mother ran inside, knowing that three seats plus
four boys led to my breath being spent on words they did not heed,
and how often I was not slow to anger…how often I didn't have or
ask for the energy to do something playful with them in the moment so
we could do more than just get by…though never wanting to use
manipulation or bribery as incentive for them to obey me, but only
love…thinking of the Good Shepherd who leads from the front and
entrusts the choice of obedience into His followers…because He
wants to be chosen…and my body reminds me how much earlier I sleep
on the days I spend giving myself to them…and I look now at the
mound of dishes in the sink that need to be washed again, so they can
eat again, so they can play and learn and run again, so they can be
tired again, so they can sleep again, so they can wake again and we
can all do it all over again.
From glory to glory.
OH how I need eyes for You!
The many layers and folds of love are
appearing before me
like the treasure room beneath
Parkington Lane
in the movie "National Treasure."
I think of my friend Darcy, a world
traveler turned stay-at-home mom.
I think of myself, and wonder.
Love is a choice.
And it can be over all, through all, in
all.
I think of thoughts writ earlier in
these pages,
originating at the home of Emily's
mother --
"…A living sacrifice of love…
You are currently shifting my mind,
refining it with love,
with Your very heart.
Joy. You designed love to be a joyful
thing.
Let me know joy through the veil of
sacrificial love.
And more than anything, let me know
Your heart."
What else? Let me know such exuberant
joy in loving sacrificially. And yet…is asking that sort of
backwards? You made Yourself NOTHING and humbled Yourself to the
point of death on a cross…
for the joy set before You.
Okay. So I will refine my request. ;)
(But You will do what You want.
But I know You love hearing from me
and giving me the desires of my heart.
You told me to ask anything!)
So…while I want to know joy, I don't
want to know it
more than I want to know You.
(Yet…it comes from and has its source
in You!)
I ask for times of unexplainable,
nonsensical joy
when the world would lament.
I ask that I would know Your heart
when mine knows sorrow
as a result of how I have loved.
I ask that You would protect me
NOT from searing pain,
but from choosing against love,
from not knowing You.
Let all that happens cause me to love
more,
never less;
to trust You more,
not less.
Protect that part of me that wants to
love,
let it always be further cultivated,
never shriveled.
I ask that I would always believe that
it's worth it.
Even if I cannot see how.
Because the end-all of love being worth
it
is not my own reward.
It is You being known.
And even if You are only known to me
in those acts of love,
it is still worth it.
Because You died for me too.
I will need help in my belief and in my
unbelief alike.
Let Your love be the governor in all of
my decisions;
give me grace, tenderness and utmost
compassion
to believe You when it's hard,
to keep me walking forward in Your
love.
Thank You for loving me so care-fully.
Always.
Thank You for the way Glen loves Julia.
For how it shows me Your love for me.
How You are so tender…so patient
and so much more concerned with
the condition of my heart in a matter
than the matter itself.
Relationship. Marriage. Oneness…Us.
You are letting me muse and wonder
and You are letting me hear Your
thoughts.
Motherhood or no motherhood for me,
You are making it about the journey WE
have
and the relationship that is deepened
as You disclose Yourself to me.
I digress; I rest.
Nothing is sweeter.
Thy will be done.
Thank You <3>3>