Remember to love

It’s hard to know what to write after the very serious blog that I wrote the other day. That’s where my emotions were. Now I need to figure out how to let them heal even more.

I know that I was planning on finding the first thing that I had sent as an update in 2004, but I couldn’t find it in my old emails. I might have uploaded it on myspace. And that has changed since then. Dad said that he might have it saved somewhere. Who knows.....

I ran across some paper print out of an update I emailed in 2004 that was saved inside a Bible, but it is not there now. It looks like I can’t use my earliest writings as a reference. Not today anyway.

But I can still remember, and getting things out is a big deal. I remember when there were no famous books or sermons to teach me what love looked like. I remember when there were no big famous missionary rock stars. I remember people listening.

That was a long time ago though.

I do remember that we had to back then was think and talk.

It wasn’t a lot of talking though, because we didn’t have many people to talk deep things with. Not very many people could understand. I did have my mom. She called me, and my spiritual mom called me. They both wanted to check on my and my husband and our bun in the oven. I didn't know exactly what to say. I did finally spill the beans to mom. She listened really quietly. I think I could hear her crying. I had really moved to a new place where death was one of my biggest culture shocks. I had so much to learn. I had so much to remember. I had to remember why I was there. I had to remember what my calling was, and how much God loved the people he called me to come and serve as a missionary. I had to remember so much.

I had to remember to love. I had to relearn how to love. Now just because I was a newly married wife and an expecting mother. I had to learn what love looked like in the new place we were living. I trusted missionaries who had been there longer than me, and national pastors who were are dear friends to help me understand what love typically looks like in the mew culture I found myself deeply swallowed in. Learning to love from friends is good, but it isn't perfect. It isn't the whole picture.

Learning what love looks like from anyone other than Jesus is going to produce dutiful attempts to love. Love looks like something. It really does, but it’s not only about giving food to the poor and clothes to the naked.

Love does look like something to the poor and to the rich. Love looks like someone a little bit different to each one of us. When we are too focused on ‘loving’ others we forget that love flows from an intimate relationship with someone who is the source of pure love. Jesus is love.

If we just use our connection with God and Jesus as a wish list for helping other people, then our energy will eventually dry totally up. Imagine that our love or ability to help someone in need is like water in a swimming hole in a river. When the swimming hole is cut off from the rest of the river it eventually gets shallower and shallower, until it dries up.

We do need to ask God for strength to be light and salt, but it’s pointless to ask without receiving.  

A good father knows how to give gifts. I didn’t have to ask my dad two times for money to go out to eat with my friends. How many times are we rattling off our requests? "Dad, I really need medicine for this little boy, I really need food for this widow. I really really need medicine, and food. Can you please give me what I need?" The answer is on the way. And the pause between when the medicine arrives and the food is ready isn’t always a delay I his answer. Sometimes we need a few minutes to stop and wait on his thoughts about how to give the food or medicine. Sometimes we need a few more minutes just to sit and Breath with God. We need to look at his face and see our reflection in his eyes. He loves us so much. His love is our strength. Communion with him changes the way we think. His thoughts become our thoughts, all the sudden we can see that there is something blocking the flow of his love and compassion to our swimming hole, our water well.

Sometimes it’s time to unbury the "well" by digging deeper because the dam is too strong. Maybe God is redirecting the flow for a season for us learn how to dig deeper down. Maybe God is giving us a tool to tear down a sloppily thrown up dam, or clean up some garbage that is dirtying the water and turning it into muck and mud. The answer to our prayers is different because each one of us are facing different needs, different seasons and different abilities to steward the flow of God’s river.

If a large deep river gets stopped up that’s a gigantic dam, and a huge effort to fix the flow or redirect the flow into something else. It’s going to change the environment around where a river used to flow freely. It might be the season for that environment. We don’t always know all the details or plans God has. He might actually want to see changes in a place that we don’t feel comfortable with. The flow of water is still present, but it is harnessed for a different purpose. Sometimes a gulley or a channel is being dug to join different streams together. It can be dirty work, causing the river to muck up for a while until the dirt settles back to the newly formed river bed.

We don’t always know what is happening with the flow of God’s Holy Spirit. We don’t always understand why his love is washing over us in waves or flowing through us as a hot spring that bubbles up from under the ground. It’s too difficult to say that God’s presence is only this, or only that. That his love goes this way, or only in this direction. We don’t always know his thoughts. Even though we could know more of his thoughts. We could just spend time with him and learn more about his thoughts and his ways. We could begin to see how he sees and move how he moves. Imagine so much unity that we flow with God like a seamless dance partner. 

We could begin to identify different aspects of his character that are new to us, we didn’t ever taste that kind of mercy and kindness before, or miraculous provision of finances, or multiplication of food. There are so many details that only God has taken into account and made a fabulous design. If we spend time talking with God, listening to God we spend more time delighting in his perfection. More of his perfection will be revealed in our lives.

The food is ready right on time to go and feed the kids and give the medicine, but I didn’t wait on God to hear everything that Holy Spirit was explaining or look at the details of the vision to get a better understanding of His plan. It’s important to sit with God and listen. I learned the hard way. I got what I needed to give away and ran out of enough love to follow every detail of instructions available to me. I could have been more attentive to one child’s needs and learned much more quickly how to treat malaria. I mourned the loss of our cute little neighbor. I also learned right away, and never forgot, that I needed to sit with Jesus and focus on his lovely face. I said “ok” to trying to save as many people around me from suffering as possible, that I began to suffer deeply. It is one thing to share in the suffering of Christ, but completely another to suffering needlessly out of duty.

Christ doesn’t want us to be servants tending to everyone's needs. He also doesn't want us to grieve endlessly for the loss of his little pumpkins, or pretend like it doesn't hurt. He knows that we are living in a world where we will face sorrows. He weeps with us. One of my most treasured scripture verses as a teenager was: Jesus wept. (John 11:35 shortest verse in the whole Bible) I felt so comforted by a real person with skin on and emotions, it showed me that his heart broke when he was deeply sad. I felt like a person who was understood by the creator of the universe.

I don’t think he was communicating to tell his friends, “I have a great plan here, my Dad has got this taken care of.” With his tears. No, he was genuinely sad. His friend died. Yes, He knew that his Abba Papa God would be glorified through the miracle that would follow. He also knew that his friend had suffered. I saw his compassion and his love. He doesn’t celebrate our suffering. He weeps.

My heart was mended by knowing that verse. Many times those words were like balsam over the wounds in my broken heart. I don’t literally blame myself anymore for the deaths that happened near me during my first months as a missionary. I repented so many times for not looking at the details. Papa God comforted me. I did learn incredibly valuable lessons through my experience. I did repent many times when there was a thing that I should have done differently. I did also learn to trust that God in his awesomeness knew all of my weaknesses and inabilities. His ability to save the life of a child or young mother was not hindered by my feeble attempts to love the poor around me.   

I have to trust him. I have utter hope and dependence on God because my abilities and skills are so tiny, his are infinite. That little guy isn’t suffering anymore. It is truly solace for my soul. My typical inflow of spiritual food and water was changed when I moved far from the community where I had lived for years. I had to learn how to unbury wells for dry seasons, and prepare the riverbed for a flash flood. I had to discover new sources of energy and strength to be a missionary.

It wasn’t easy but the most important thing I learned in those first few months of being a missionary was to stay thoroughly soaked in God’s river. When it was harder and harder to stay soaked I had to begin to steady my gaze on his eyes and find the details of his plan. When I was finished digging down, and he was ready to let the rain fall, I had to climb back to the surface of the riverbed, or I would be drowned in the bottom of the well. When I came up I found the clouds ready to drop buckets of rain. I knew I had a fun swimming hole to come back to anytime I needed refreshing while he was redirecting the flow of the bigger stream.

I love swimming. I had to remember to love me first. 

Take care of you. Spend more time with God than you think you can afford. Not just praying while driving and stuff like cleaning and praying; but really meditating on God’s word, his goodness and his great plan for you. That’s loving you. He might direct you to get a manicure, or discover a cure for cancer. He’s clever. He’s perfectly wise and knows how to love us, and he knows how to love other people through our lives laid down as a living sacrifice.

He’s not looking for a burnt offering. He wants a living, burning passionate lover. Then it will be difficult to NOT spend time with him. He will have to remind you to get back to cooking or cleaning and the other important stuff. He knows how to love us, and all we have to do is let ourselves be loved.

Remember to love you….as much as you love you, will be the measure that you can love somebody else.

Lots of love,

Missionary Momma Mia