Imperfect Love

At work once, our office staff had to engage in a team building activity that required us to hammer a word of intention onto a metal ring.  I created two that day, but one was filled with mistakes as the hammer slipped out of my hand when I tried to imprint the letters.  I kept it, however,  as a more treasured possession that reflects a beautiful humility inherent in the errors.  The message on it was from 1 John 4:16 that says "God is love.  Whoever lives in love lives in God and God in them." I got the second metal ring right and hammered the letters in without incident, but I cherish the mistake laden one more because it represents me better. The truth is, I don't always listen to understand or love without judgment. My thoughts, words, and actions aren't always aligned with the God in me, but instead flow from a heart that hasn't been well guarded.  Proverbs 4:23 says "above all else, guard your heart for everything you do flows from it," and if I'm being honest, I've not always been the best steward and watchman over my own heart.  I've watched things I should have turned off, I've engaged in behaviors I should have stopped, and I've been careless with my words.  But I try.  Fail.  Try again.  And the beautiful thing about it all is that God loves me, not because my love for Him and others is perfect, but because it's not. It's an utterly imperfect love, completely dependent upon the God who created me.  And that is perfect. 

The Compromise

Not long after finding out I was pregnant in January of 2017, 10 years after I originally began praying for a second child, I made the decision to do whatever I needed to do to get, and keep, my life on track with God's plan.  In the three years leading up to the discovery of my pregnancy, I had not only become derailed in my walk with God, but I also had sunken to a depth of depression and despair that I didn't know how to climb out of.  Would I get out?  I asked the question frequently.  Did I want to get out?  An even more difficult question that I asked during some of the darker moments of that three year period.  At my worst, I no longer wanted to live, and at my best, I was so ensnared in the mistakes I had made that I didn't know how to untangle the web I'd unconsciously weaved.  From a broken marriage to the reckless adoption of the world's ways, I was fighting daily to stay afloat in the troubled emotional waters in which I swam.  Ominous waves of condemnation and gripping undercurrents of fear and self-loathing beat mercilessly against my every effort to swim to the shore of Jesus' love. Eventually, I grew weary and disheartened, doubtful and confused.  I found myself looking around at the dark ocean of mistakes that surrounded me and I wondered how I got in such deep waters.  It took a lot of reflection and honest, unashamed introspection to uproot the pain and unearth the cause.  I had to forgive the people I believed had put me there and take responsibility for my own life choices.  At the end of the pain, I realized that the spiritual and emotional geography of where I found myself started, not with the hurtful actions of others, but with my own willingness to make a compromise.

A Moment on Maui

As I sat in a quaint little cottage in Elk Grove, California not long ago, I found myself marveling over the rustic and beautiful decor that was oddly appropriate to my life circumstances in that moment.  Directly above me at the time I started writing was a sign that read happily ever after.  Over a nearby light switch was a strategically placed wall hanging that said dream.  The guestbook on a table near the front door contained a world map with surrounding words like journey and adventure.  The room still lingers freshly in my mind although it has been weeks since I was there.  I inhaled the decorative encouragement and savored the brief, but sweet, escape to familiarity.  I had never actually been to Elk Grove prior to that trip, but I was back home.  In California.  It didn't matter to me in that moment that Elk Grove wasn't where I wanted to permanently settle.  I would sort the details out as I continued to move forward.  The only thing I knew for certain in that moment is that I was blessed, grateful, and forever changed by the moment on Maui that led to it all.