Skip to main content

All You Need Is Love; Love Is All You Need

Do you ever feel like you have to learn the same life-lessons over and over and over? Like Jethro Bodeen, you repeat the sixth grade countless times? Yeah, me too. Of course, this wouldn't be the case if I would just get the point the first time around.

The latest in my litany of lessons is Love. Not love, but Love as in "God is." 2011 was a tough year around here. Many of you know about just a few of the things that helped it earn that descriptor, and you know what I do when life gets overwhelming? I focus on the overwhelming of course! I rant against the wrongs. My faith gets crowded out by the problems that surround me. I don't want to do this, but it seems to creep up on me, and before I know it, I'm in that place yet again - a shrinking shadow backed into the corner by a bully.

As it happens though, God turned out to be the walls of the corner into which the issues and circumstances of 2011 backed me. I'm still in that corner, but I've realized (finally) that He's there with me. I've realized that I'm hopeless and helpless to change the situations and relationships about which I've ranted to Him. Isn't that encouraging? Yep, it is. Because now I can work on letting go. I can willfully bring these things to the cross - not in anger, frustration, and fear but in surrender. I've realized (for the hundredth time maybe) that "apart from Him, I can do nothing." I can't carry the responsibilities I have at work. I can't love the people in my life. I can't even enjoy any part of life without Him.

And I've realized that the most important thing I can do on any given day is to let Him love me. With that as my foundation, with Love as my constant companion, I can do life. I can work. I can play. I can be patient. I can even love others. Yes, I think The Beatles had it right: all you need is Love . . . with a capital "L."

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Believing the Lies

My husband and I recently watched The Help - a story about a group of African American women who worked as maids in Jackson, Mississippi in the '60s. One of the protagonists works for a woman "who got no b'ness havin' babies." This woman, this family maid and nanny, tells her little two year old ward regularly, "You is pretty. You is smart. You is impor'ant." How difficult it is for us to believe that about ourselves - really, to believe anything good about ourselves. I always try to be my raw self when I write a blog post. Today is no exception. So I confess that I've been drowning in a storm of lies lately. My head knows they're lies, and I could easily tell anyone else in the same place that they're lies, but I haven't been able to get a grip. There have been so many of them coming at me at once. It seems that I just break the surface, gulp some fresh air of truth then get pulled back under. One thing I know: the enemy of our ...
7 comments
Read more

Tricia's Return (my first ICL assignment for 13-17 year olds)

I stormed down the hall and slammed the door. I’d had enough! Dumping my books out of my backpack, I began shoving in clothes – anything I could grab. I dug through the junk on the floor of my closet and found my stash – my life’s savings. I shoved it on top of my clothes. In the midst of this frenzy, I heard a soft knock on my door. "Tricia?" It was my mom. “What now?” I couldn’t keep the anger out of my voice. She was just going to launch into another tirade. Her list of my shortcomings was endless, and I didn’t want to hear them anymore. I didn’t open the door; I climbed out my window, backpack in tow, grabbed my bike and took off for the bus station. Jeremy didn’t know I was coming. He’d be so surprised. I couldn’t wait to see him! We’ve been together for a year; but since his family moved to St. Louis four months ago, we haven’t seen each other. We haven’t even been able to talk much He'd made the varsity soccer team; and with all the games and practices, he hadn’t h...
2 comments
Read more

Resting...Resting?

A few weeks ago, my husband and I had dinner with our daughter-in-law and two of our grand children. My daughter-in-law lost her job a couple of months ago. I wanted an update on current job prospects or plans, so I asked, "What are you doing these days?" Her answer was simple and yet incredibly profound.              Resting. (Is that even a word in the American lexicon?) I'm proud of her, and of them, for making the decision that it's time for her to rest. She's been in hyper-drive for all the years I've known her (over 16).  That word has haunted me since she spoke it. Resting. What would happen if I...if you...gave it a try?  In Psalm 23: 6a, David says Surely goodness and mercy will follow me. In K.J. Ramsey's The Lord is My   Courage (page 240), she tells us that our English word, "follow," doesn't convey the power behind the original Hebrew word that David used (radaph). She tells us that radaph means "to pursue, chase, and pers...
1 comment
Read more