The Risk of Love

If I believe greater love and authenticity are needed in this world, how could I not give to where it is lacking?

A little transparency here…

I would LOVE to gatekeep myself, only allowing in those trustworthy to care for me, but

I believe in the selflessness and unconditionality of love.

Love goes beyond what it can give me and extends in purpose to create beautiful hope and truth in others. 

In return, my sacrifice to love develops a new grace in me.

Love transforms, and I have seen its beauty and power in my own life. Thus, I desire the love that has been graciously poured into me to overflow into others.

 

Using wisdom and setting boundaries to guard my heart is absolutely necessary, yet I am learning that there will be times when love will require me to risk my feelings to walk in its purpose.

So, though past trauma has caused me to hesitate to sacrifice in this way, I will remain trusting of God's care when He commands me to love anyway. 

I will choose to be kind and love intensely no matter the cost because I believe that God will never allow anything done in His love to be in vain.

Therefore, I will seek God and learn how to love in wisdom while also becoming unafraid to love in the riskiest of moments. For that is exactly how Christ has loved us.  

- lr

To Believe In Good

The closest people to me can tell you that I lived in a dream as a child. 

I chased what could be with a knowing that it soon would be. 

I dreamt big and believed that to be optimistic meant to live in a whimsical illusion complete with all things imagined. 

I saw that people’s lives should be much more than they settled for. Therefore, I dreamt that mine would be the exception. 

The life of this dreaming child was beautiful. 

She found a sparkle and a hope in everything. 

She never worried about the worst-case scenarios or the possible painful betrayals because she knew it would all add up to a happily ever after, just like in the movies. 

She never settled to see life as it currently existed; instead, she saw life as beautiful as it could be.

She was innocent, and life in her eyes was just as clay, simply waiting to be molded into the greatest thing one can imagine.

This changed as I grew up. 

Life was unhesitant to show me that some dreams don’t come true, and even worse, some actually morph into nightmares. 

I knew good and evil, but I was shocked into awareness when the same good I trusted and found happiness in over time became the same stone that shattered my heart. 

I am traumatized and even now find myself consumed with fear that all good results in disaster. 

Clouded by such horror in and around our lives, we often forget that good remains because God remains. 

I am eager to deny this truth out of the bitterness, fear, and sorrow of my experiences.

Yet, to not believe that good exists despite the difficulties means to unjustly imprison our life when Christ has deemed it free in Him. 

I have viewed the disappointments of my life as a puncture to my hope, leading me to rely on myself to safely guard my heart. 

However, I have learned recently that God views the same disappointments as another way to build my faith and display the depth of His love for me. 

And in that is such a beautiful good I fail to realize.  

I want the courage to be like a child again, walking into situations with the hope and belief that good will triumph because God is above it all. 

This time, this thinking will not come with delusions but with genuine trust in a faithful God. 

It may not be the same childhood dream I had, but it is a new hope found in the One who, in time, makes all things good.

- lr

Heart Pieces: Believable Words

I fail; this is an easy thing to admit.

Struggling to grasp the title of redeemed while struggling to release the title of depraved.

I play this intense game of switching my identity back and forth from failure to successor. 

The times I have tried to change this narrative by carving into my head that I am loved and chosen exceed my finger tallies.

Earth’s reality tells me that believing that I am anything other than an on-and-off flake would be foolish. 

For unholy things don’t mix with Holy things. 

Good things don’t mix with bad things.

And imperfect people cannot be accepted by a Perfect being.

Therefore, I am unable to receive such a love as God’s because I am indeed imperfect, and He is indeed Holy.

I have accepted this tainted thinking, and in return, flows the guilt of being offered the love in the first place.

It seems that my mind has turned God's love into chains that I must refuse. 

How mistaken I am…

To see such a gracious and steadfast love as conditional

and to see the Truth as a fallacy.

Adam and Eve must have felt this way.

The enemy convinced Adam and Eve that the One most trustworthy was deceptive.

Though I would love to say that I would never make the mistake of falling into this trap and eating of the tree, at this exact moment, I am proving myself incapable of that proper decision. 

I use the reality that I am flawed to determine whether God’s love for me is appropriate.

Exposing my weakness,

imperfections, 

and humanity, 

just as the first man and woman.

I am Adam and Eve, diminishing the validity of God’s words due to my sinful inability to believe. 

But if I just believe, 

then every unstable reality of myself will conclude in Christ’s devoted love for me.

I am weak, yes, but His grace and power are sufficient in me (2 Cor. 12:9).

I am flawed, yes, but I am washed, sanctified, and justified through Christ (1 Cor. 6:11).

I am human, yes, but He is faithful to complete the work He has begun in me (Phil. 1:6).

All of me, the good, bad, beautiful, and ugly, ends with the truth of Christ’s love.

His love united His Holy with my unholy, declaring me righteous in Him. 

Now, I am allowed to be His before claiming to be anything else. 

He is the way, the truth, and the life, and in all of His wisdom, power, grace, and love, He is able to determine the truth of Himself and me, His creation.

And it is seen that freedom rings when His words are believed.

- lr

Heart Pieces: Falling to Beauty

I adore the season of fall.

The crisp air amid the warmth of colors.

The crunchy leaves under the soft hue of the grey and blue sky.

It is a time of calm.

A time that contrasts the rush of summer.

And a time that effortlessly causes even the unlikely to pause and reflect. 

This season calls the new to become old and demands the old to patiently wait to be reborn in the spring.

Autumn finds beauty in strenuous change and discovers grace in death.

If looked at closely enough, fall is a reminder of how God beautifies His beloved. 

The movement of God leads to a slow whither, similar to the trees in autumn. 

Though they do not fully die, fragments of them begin to fall away.

This dwindling can be seen as distressing to some, but it is just the opposite. 

It is God’s magnificent way of altering the heart and mind to bear greater fruit.

He calls us to Himself, moving us to abandon the instability of our familiar ways.

And in response to our willingness, He orchestrates the old falling and the new rising.

A precious gift to those He loves.

A time ago, it was summer, and we existed in the uncomfortable heat of life, thirsting for water and covering.

We not only craved relief for our bodies, but our hearts also yearned for a nourishing dew that would reach our souls.

With this purposeful burden came our willingness to bend in humble response to God’s will; in return, 

He gave us fall.

Here in the fall, God makes a home. 

He calls our unholy ways to mimic the leaves. 

The once intense pieces now alter in color and fall in command of His wind.

Then, they land on the ground finally to allow space for the best of what God is. 

Winter will soon arrive not to end our days but to hibernate our souls. 

The old leaves of our minds and hearts have fallen and become no more due to the unyielding elements of truth’s chill. 

The old has now entirely passed away.

Spring then settles, and there it is, the new hope, the new sureness, the new spiritual fruit that was once absent has now sprouted and been woven into our being. 

We are not the same.

We have become more gracious and kind.

Our selfishness has been traded for service, and we miraculously find joy in the places we once wept. 

We are a new creation in Him, to never be the same.

Though it is spring, the cycle of seasonal growth will begin again.

Growth is complex and encompasses both the beautiful and the ugly.

Yet, how graced we are to have a God who loves us so much that He will continue to renew and refine us season after season, day after day.

For He is faithful to complete the work He has begun in us.

Here is to a cold yet purposed winter and the gift of extraordinary beauty in Him.

2 Corinthians 5

- lr