As you may know (if you’ve read this blog at all since the beginning of the year), I’m pregnant with our 5th kiddo. One of those is married with her own baby, three are under the age of ten, and one is either super easy and relaxed – not wanting to join us yet – or is going to be my “tough one.” I’m leaning towards the super easy and relaxed, not out of wishful or hopeful thinking, but because even our fiery child (the youngest right now) is what I consider easy. Yes, I’m referring to our 4yr old who puts her 7yr old brother in rear-naked-choke holds. Yes, I’m referring to the one who gets upset if you don’t allow her to say the blessing – even in front of crowds. Yes… the one who transposes her letters and skips numbers when counting, but there’s no telling her she’s wrong. Yes… the one who has to be the loudest in the room, even when only competing with the blender.
This pregnancy is coming to a close (any day now!) and the wait has become a bit much in my mind. I go to bed at night and think to myself well, I didn’t go into labor today… and then I get up in the morning thinking well, the baby didn’t come last night… I hear it in my head and chide myself for sounding so ungrateful. I’m at the point of exhaustion in which I can only look around at my home and feel overwhelmed.
My husband cooked dinner for us the other night and I was so grateful that I didn’t have to do it (and I love cooking). But we have a different system, use different cookware and utensils, and clean up on a different schedule. Does anyone else know what I’m talking about? I’m the type that wants the kitchen cleaned up right after we’re done eating – at the latest, before we go to bed. My hubby’s schedule isn’t wrong, but it’s not the same as mine. I felt overwhelmed the next morning when looking around the kitchen and seeing pots and pans left dirty on the stove.
My family also decided to clean out our van. Awesome, right? Since we have been sharing a vehicle since November, our van quickly morphed from family van to hauling tools belonging to a working general contractor who loves snacking on pistachios. Nails and screws, Home Depot bags trying to outnumber the bags from Lowes, measuring tapes, and always a random piece of wood… add all that to water bottles, snack bags, Hot Wheel cars, Barbies, and coloring books (did I mention crayons?)… the van needed a good clean-out. We finally found and purchased a work truck for my husband and now the van is mine. The kiddos relocated everything from the van to… can you guess? The kitchen table! Yay!
I can’t help but think of all the times we set out to do something that has all the good intentions, the right heart behind it, yet falls short. The sacrifice of working all day to come home and cook a meal for 6 people is an amazing gift! To wrangle three kiddos into cleaning out a van thoroughly takes a great deal of patience. To watch, entertain, and at times just keep alive three kiddos so that I can take a nap is an absolute blessing! But how easy is it to see the parts that don’t measure up?
Last week I wanted to give you some things to contemplate in regards to the magnitude of God’s love. When it comes to people who were once mean to me, I can’t even bring myself to attach their name to my family tree – yet God took the sins of all those who committed, and will one day commit, atrocities against their fellow man and cast those sins as far as the east is from the west! If you happened to miss last week’s post, here’s the link for your convenience: Imagine His Love. His love is so much more than I can even express.
While we may hear or read the word “love” and have all these romantical thoughts enter our mind, there is a depth that many purposely avoid or simply don’t even recognize. Our world has gotten so fast paced and convoluted that we can seldom bring ourselves to believe that we’re loved, we rarely believe that we’re loved the right way, or even deserving of love. We get hurt over and over by others who are also searching for lasting love and when they aren’t able to fill the voids in us, we lose confidence in the overall concept that we can ever be completely loved and accepted. I mean really – I’ve just complained about having my van cleaned out without asking and having my husband cook dinner for our family! Complained!
“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this world’s darkness, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Ephesians 6:12 (NIV)
I will occasionally come across a meme on social media that the hammer fully hits the nail square on the head. I’ll save them when they’re particularly poignant and well said. I recently came across one that I had saved a long time ago. It sparked some of this that I wanted to share with you. I’m not sure who authored this (I think I saw something similar by Louie Giglio), I am not taking credit for the words of wisdom, and I’m thankful for who was inspired to write them down:
“The Enemy wants to define you by your wounds. Jesus wants to define you by His.”
The enemy (the devil), uses his lies to try twisting us into knots; often he will succeed. It’s similar in the dating field (or even in marriage – when thoughts of inadequacy try to take root) – that we look at all the ways we let others down or that we focus on how they’ve let us down. We spend time looking at all the ways we don’t measure up, how we’ve failed or not done enough, and we can’t help but focus on how far away we are from hitting the mark that we still think is ours to hit. Or, like in these last few days, I’ve had a difficult time focusing on the beauty of the sacrifices my family has been making. In the end, if not recognized, we get hurt. Of course we fall short. Of course we fail. But we’re neglecting to recognize that we’re not to define ourselves by our own efforts, but rather by Jesus’ over-compensating success.
We have this mentality that we have to do more and be more in order to be deserving of love. This is something we have come to accept as truth in regards to God because it’s what we see in almost every other relationship. No one on earth can perfectly model God’s love and everything that comes with it (patience, kindness, gentleness, etc.). It’s especially dangerous in relationships. It would be so easy for me to blow a fuse with my family for not doing things the way I do them – but how is that showing them love?
“God is not in love with some future version of you who will perform better. He loves every bit of you right here and now.” -Andrew Farley
Jesus died a horrible death so that our relationship with Him would no longer be about our performance. He also doesn’t look at all the ways we’ve been hurt and determine us to be too damaged to be deserving of His love. God looks at us and sees the wounds His Son endured on our behalf. He sees us and loves us.
God knows my OCD tendencies of wanting things done a certain way and at a certain time. He knows I struggle with so many areas – areas that I’m not even aware of. He loves the me that I am right now. He loved me before I had ever taken a breath, before I had acquired physical and emotional scars, and before I made the decision to accept His gift of forgiveness. There’s nothing I can do to make Him love me more, and there’s nothing I can do that will make Him love me less.
John loved to share that he was the disciple whom Jesus loved. He didn’t add that it was because he did things right, caught the right amount of fish, witnessed perfectly, or always said or did the right thing. No strings attached: he was the disciple whom Jesus loved. Having adopted this mindset (my husband started it and I’m not complaining) my perspective has changed in so many ways. I am the one whom Jesus loves. There’s no performance required in order to earn it – love has a way of generating a genuine response from those who accept it.
How have you experienced God’s love? How have you responded? Have you felt overwhelmed with feelings of not being “enough” whether in God’s eyes or in the eyes of someone else? I challenge you to look at yourself in the mirror and tell yourself aloud seven little words every time you feel inadequate: I AM THE ONE WHOM JESUS LOVES. Adopting this mindset is a game-changer.