What Gifts of Love Have Influenced You Powerfully? By Sandi Somers

love hand hears by Unsplash

  “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Luke 10:27 NIV)

 February is the month devoted to love. Our challenge this month is to consider gifts of love and kindness we’ve received and given.

 Being loved and loving—a missing ingredient in many relationships. Perhaps It begins with misunderstanding God’s love. When we don’t know how much God loves us, our love for others can go awry. We misplace our love with other people or things. We can’t forgive. We harbour bitterness. We feel rejected.

 On the other hand, loving others is a measure of how much we accept and know His love right to the core of our being.

Over this last month the Lord has been impressing on me what his love means, and to love Him and others more deeply, especially in these areas.

 Forgiveness.

A number of years ago, my path met with a former student. As we chatted, I remembered how I had been unnecessarily angry with him when he was in Grade Two. Now I apologized. He gently put his hand on my arm and said, “I don’t remember. I forgive you.” Gratitude and an overwhelming sense of peace filled me. I realized then how transforming forgiveness can be to another person when I offer it.

The speaker David Jeremiah once said, “Forgiveness is always our turn.” Forgiveness doesn’t diminish what was done, nor does it condone. Nor do we glibly forgive without working through the icebergs of hurt, pain, confusion, and voicelessness. When we take responsibility and forgive, our spirit becomes free to love.

Compassion.  

This winter I’ve been praying for a friend who is deeply grieving the deaths of loved ones. The Lord has invited me to enter more into her pain with compassion and empathy. And beyond this, the Lord has impressed on me to open up a tenderness to enter into others’ pain. (For an excellent discussion on compassion, read Alan Anderson’s January blog post here.) 

Valuing others

When I visit my nephew Tobi and his family, I’m greeted at the door by kids who hug me and tell me (all at once) about themselves. I feel valued and affirmed.

Gary Chapman’s book, The Five Love Languages, was a breakthrough for me. People, he said, feel valued in five different ways: a touch or hug; words of affirmation and appreciation; meaningful gifts; “acts of service”—having someone do something for them; or quality time and attention.  Although the Lord keeps prompting me to give more of my time and availability to others, I’m still very much a work in progress in all of the areas above.  In addition, He is inviting me to “launch out” into the unknown, as I both interact and pray for those God places in my path. As I include more of these facets in my writing, others will know Christ’s love for them, and God will be honoured.   

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Challenge: Who has graced your life with love, and/or whose life have you graced with love?  

Thought: God loves us infinitely more than we can dream or imagine. Demonstrate that love as Paul loved his people: “How much I love you and long for you with the tender compassion of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:8, NLT).

Don't Fence Me In - Joylene M. Bailey

Anyone who has spoken to me recently, or read the New Year post on my blog would think that I’m the kind of person who flies by the seat of my pants. Who hates goals and making lists.

Not true.

Anyone who has known me for years knows plainly and without a doubt, that I am a die-hard list-maker, scheduler, and goal-setter. I have even gone so far as to make a colour-coordinated schedule of every single household chore done over a whole year, right down to daily sweeping of the floor.

I like to label things and make charts and check things off.

That’s why it’s a big stretch for me to lay all of that aside. Not to even go there.

It’s kind of like Tracy’s “Making a List and Leaving It” – only without the list.

No lists.

No charts.

No pretty checkmarks in colour-coordinated columns.

But that is what God is asking me to do this year.

He is asking me to give up all the charts and lists, and be quiet.

He knows me so well; knows that if I had lists and goals to accomplish, that would be my focus - the busyness of getting it all done.

But no.

I am to be quiet in my spirit – to keep listening to His voice.

And I am to be quiet in my outer life – to give up the busyness.

Then, in my quietness, I need to show up.

Show up at my writing desk regularly to write what He wants me to write.

Show up in the opportunities He places in my path to Love God and Love People.

Luke 10:27 – “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself” is my verse for this year.

Over the years the Lord and I have had some great conversations in front of my bathroom mirror as I get ready for the day. The conversations have been about big things, little things, and everything in between.

It’s where I got angry with Him for not answering our plea for help in deciding what church to attend when our girls were little, and He answered so plainly and faithfully.

It’s where one day He said, “Maybe don’t wear any make-up today.”

“WHAT?? Not even mascara??”

That was a lesson in His love for me just the way He made me.

Last week I was feeling uncomfortable with no charts full of lists and goals to do. So I said, “Maybe I could just try to enter one writing contest a month …”

Immediately the words Don’t Fence Me In flashed upon my mind.

So it was confirmed.

No charts.

No lists.

No checkmarks.

Kind of scary for me.

Feels a little like walking on one of those swinging rope bridges hanging over a gorge. Anything could happen. I could lose my footing. A big wind could come up and swing that bridge so hard I’d barely be able to hang on. Or, it might be a nice scenic bouncy walk.

So, I won't fence Him in. It makes me nervous. It feels risky and dangerous. But it’s safely dangerous because I have learned to trust the One who is asking it of me.