When You Come Up Short (and it really matters)

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When You Come Up Short (and it really matters)

Friday, January 3rd, 2014 by Lori Roeleveld 3 Comments

It’s like Christianity sandbox 101: Love.

Right? I mean, it’s the first thing we learn, that God is love

and the first truth we understand, that we should love others.

So, you’d think I could pull it off.

And if you asked me some time ago if I love God,

or if I’m loving to others,

I’d have made squirrely eyes at you and scrunched up my face

in a way that said, “Duh – yes! I’m loving. Where is this question even coming from? I’m a Christian – helloooo.”

But, then I stood in the full-length mirror of God’s definition of love

Corinthians 13

And when I read His standard,

well, gulp,

my life suddenly had a soundtrack by Foreigner:

“I wanna know what love is
I want you to show me
I wanna feel what love is
I know you can show me
I’m gonna take a little time
A little time to look around me
I’ve got nowhere left to hide
It looks like love has finally found me”

According to God,

Love is

Patient,

Kind,

Does not envy

Does not boast

Is not arrogant

Or rude

Does not insist on its own way,

Is not irritable

Or resentful

Does not rejoice at wrongdoing

But rejoices with the truth

It bears all things

Believes all things

Hopes all things

Endures all things

It never ends.

Wow, if that’s love, I’m so screwed,

Empty as a pocket,

Four fries short of happy meal,

A partridge in a world without pear trees,

A poser

a cornered mouse in the cookie jar of faith.

There’s a moment of despair.

Real despair

because, seriously,

fifty plus years of following Jesus

and I still don’t know how to love Him?

How seventies.

But then, a brilliant thought occurs

one that ignites hope in

this old-leathered heart –

God is love

And so before I toss myself out with the bathwater

I remember that the love He expects me to display

Is simply a reflection of the love radiating toward me

From His Son.

I can be a moon.

A satellite orbiting the center of the universe.

Love that waxes and wanes

and draws and repels the ocean tide.

Because

That love is coming at me,

It’s at the foundation grounding me,

the river raging through me,

the throbbing pulse in my veins,

Shooting to my mind like so many sparks

that become the thoughts

that move me to acts of love

drawn from a renewable source

that is His open vein.

“I don’t know how to love”

isn’t the epitaph they’ll write on my headstone,

it’s the diagnosis on my medical chart

guiding the Great Physician

to the cure

for what ails me.

He redeems me

Completely

And He is infinitely qualified

To re-create me

Into one who loves

Let the fumbling begin . . . the year of loving audaciously – day two

3 Comments

The Conversation

Sherry Carter says:

January 3, 2014 at 4:39 am

Thank you for the reminder that I draw my ability to love from the Source. I am a work in progress!

Reply
Anonymous says:

January 3, 2014 at 3:00 pm

So many times I tell myself I’m not a loving person. This blog tells me I need only be a reflection of the love of the I AM. I’d better polish up the mirror of myself so I better reflect that love. Thank you, Girl. MOMMA

Reply
Lady in the Loge says:

January 4, 2014 at 1:48 pm

“a cornered mouse in the cookie jar of faith” Whoever heard of such a thing? And yet the image brings striking clarity. I’m also drawn in and enriched by the “old-leathered heart” description. Yes, I too am thankful that the Redeemer redeems fully we who are frail. Thank you.

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