Tag: love

Loving Others

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From birth all of us love ourselves. We think of our own needs before others. We want what will make us happy with very little concern for the people around us or the situational circumstances. We love ourselves. So when Jesus tells us that the second greatest command is to “Love your neighbor as yourself.” (‭‭Mark‬ ‭12:31‬), we are in for trouble. 


I can’t help but think of my almost 12 week old daughter when reading this passage. When she is hungry she doesn’t care that the bottle needs to be warmed, her diaper needs to be changed, or the fact that mommy can’t drive and feed her at the same time. She loves herself (even though she hasn’t been taught to do this) and could careless about the circumstances. 

So if we are to love our neighbors as if they are ourselves, we are to care for them as if they are us. This isn’t natural for us. We want to take care of me, myself, and I before anything. Becoming a wife taught me that my husband and his needs had to be placed before mine. This was hard at first and I have to consciencely decide to put Kyle first daily. Becoming a mom taught me about this even further because my daughter can do nothing for herself, unlike my husband. I must feed her before myself, bath her before myself, dress, soothe, and care for her before me. Even as I have been writing this I have stopped several times to love and care for Hannah. 

Jesus says we should love our neighbors as ourselves. The word neighbor does not mean the people who live on either side of you or in your neighborhood only. Neighbor pretty much means any person you encounter during the day. We are to love others, not just our next door neighbors, the way we love ourselves. Think about it! Love everyone the way you love yourself! That’s crazy hard!!!

So today, and each day moving forward, I want God to teach me how to love others the way I naturally love myself. Putting them before myself. Caring for their needs, physically, spiritually, and emotionally, before my own. 

Loving God

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God has used these past 11 weeks to transform my definition of love. I think he is going to use the rest of my life to teach me about love to be honest. Each day my love for Kyle grows, my love for Hannah deepens, and my love for God is abundantly changed. Jesus tells us to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’” in ‭‭Mark‬ ‭12:30‬. I do not think I will ever be able to complete this command. If you really think about what Jesus is asking of you…it is overwhelming. 


Heart- my heart is so emotional (people tell me it’s the hormones) lately and seems to be on a rollercoaster of a ride. But my heart should be loving God with its entirety. The scripture doesn’t say Love the Lord your God with a piece of your heart or most of your heart. It says with ALL of your heart. 

Soul- your soul is a weird thing to think about. Dictionary.com defines soul in these ways:

  • the principle of life, feeling, thought, and action in humans, regarded as a distinct entity separate from the body, and commonly held to be separable in existence from the body; the spiritual part of humans as distinct from the physical part.
  • the spiritual part of humans regarded in its moral aspect, or as believed to survive death and be subject to happiness or misery in a life to come

Jesus is asking us to love God with the spiritual part of our beings, not just the physical. Our physical bodies with die, but our souls will live on. I think Jesus is pointing out that our love for God is something that should continue on forever, not just in our physical beings, but in our eternal souls. 

Mind- can anyone control their minds? I’m sure there are some who can or think they can, but I struggle to control my thoughts. My sinful nature thinks judgmentally before I even realize what is going on. Jesus commands us to love God with all of our mind. This includes our thoughts and knowledge. They are to be God loving focused. That is so hard!

Strength- when I think of strength I think of my physical being. Although lately I have prayed more for emotional and mental strength (leaving Hannah each morning is only by strength from the Lord mentally and emotionally). We are supposed to love God with our strength, all of it, physical, mental, and emotional . 

When Jesus is answering the question “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” He gives us this one. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’” (‭‭Mark‬ ‭12:30‬). Each morning I pray that God would teach me how to love him this way. Each day I hope to be able to love God this way. Each night I know I have failed, but strive to be able to love God the way Jesus commanded. I hope that God will continue to teach me about love and how to love him for the rest of my physical life and spiritual life. 

My Heart May Explode

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Baby girl is two months old… where did the last two months go? 


As I am enjoying my fall break (yes I went back to work two weeks ago 😔) I can only express my feelings by saying my heart feels like it will explode with love for my sweet pea. She has brought so much love and joy into our lives! We feel so blessed!

The Best Example of Love

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While God is teaching me about love I can’t help but read about love in the Bible. I want to know how I can best love Hannah, my husband, God, the church… If God is love, then we have the greatest example of how to love.

 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John‬ ‭3:16‬ ‭NIV‬‬). 

I have an entirely new outlook on this verse since August 10th. My Sunday school teacher even asked me if I would give my daughter back in order to save someone else’s life. I couldn’t help but cry later that night at the thought of giving her up. I would never. And yet God did just that. He sacrificed his son for the lives of sinners. For me. That is how much God loves you and me. Enough to give up Jesus for the chance of a relationship with me. I say chance because of the “whoever believes” part of the verse. We have to believe in order for what Jesus did on the cross to count. God made the sacrifice but we still have a decision to make. The decision to believe in Jesus.  

Do you believe in Jesus? Do you know that he is the son of God? Romans‬ ‭10:9-10‬ says, “If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.” So today I’m learning just how God loves me. He loves me enough to save me through sacrificing his son. I chose to believe when I was a child, but have you made that choice?

God is Love

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On Sunday I shared how God was teaching me about His love for me through my daughter. He has shown me more of His love with each day since her arrival, and I can’t shake this overwhelming feeling of awe.

When I look at scriptures about love I start with the passage found in 1 Corinthians 13. “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails…” (‭‭1 Corinthians‬ ‭13:4-8‬ ‭NIV‬‬) This definition of love is incredible to think about. How often do I fail to love like this. But when you pair it with 1 John 4:8, which tells us that God is love, it becomes…unimaginable. 

If we put “God” into the 1 Corinthians passage instead of “love” or “it” the passage takes a new form (at least in my mind). God is patient, God is kind. God does not envy, God does not boast, God is not proud. God does not dishonor others, God is not self-seeking, God is not easily angered, God keeps no record of wrongs. God does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. God always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. God never fails…


Wow! 

I’ve read the passage several times through and still can’t imagine why God chooses to love me. He is patient in his love. He is kind in his love. He does not envy (remember that envy and jealousy are different). I could keep going… but I think you should read the passage again. 

God is patient, God is kind. God does not envy, God does not boast, God is not proud. God does not dishonor others, God is not self-seeking, God is not easily angered, God keeps no record of wrongs. God does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. God always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. God never fails…

I must remember that God is love. 

Faith, Hope, & Love

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Do you ever read scripture and feel like God taught you His word in a situation who’ve walked through? I know I do…constantly. I was reading in 1 Corinthians 13, “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” (‭‭1 Corinthians‬ ‭13:13‬ ‭NIV), and it hit me that God has used the last three years to teach me this verse. 


Faith

The first year we tried to get pregnant we were faithful to try, try, and try again. We prayed and read God’s word and had faith that He would send a baby to us in His perfect timing. My faith was stretched and molded into something greater with each month that passed. I’m not saying I belong in the Faith Hall of Fame but I learned about Hebrews 11 first hand. “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”(‭‭Hebrews‬ ‭11:1‬ ‭NIV‬‬). I couldn’t see my future children, a positive pregnancy test, or the Lord who said he was with me, but I knew that God was with me and that He would either give me the desires of my heart or change my desires (which I prayed many times as my heart was aching). Faith was where it all began for me as I began my journey to becoming a parent.


Hope

The second year we were trying to get pregnant we had so much hope for what God was going to do in our lives. We hoped for a positive pregnancy test each month. We hoped for a baby to be sent to us. We hoped for our marriage to be strengthened through this trial. We hoped for our relationships with the Lord to be deepened. We had hope. I meditated daily on Romans 12:12; “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.” I can now see that hoping for a child deepened my prayer life. I say this because I expressed my hope through prayer continuously. Those prayers were what helped me hang on to the Lord. 


Love

Since Hannah has been born (I can’t believe she is a month old already), God has been teaching me, and continues to teach me, about love. I knew God loved me, but I didn’t understand the extent to which he loved me. Until you have a child I don’t know that you can fully understand God giving his son to die for our sins. I would do, and will do, anything to guard, shield, and protect Hannah. I do not want any harm to come to her. I cannot imagine giving her up for someone else’s life to be spared, but that is exactly what God did for me and for you. That kind of love is beyond my ability to understand. Each day I pray that God would teach me to love him as fiercely as I love Hannah. 

So here I am, at the end of a three year journey, realizing why the greatest of these is love. 

Have you SPLASHed someone today?

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We had a HUGE youth event last week called SPLASH Bartow. SPLASH stands for Show People Love And Share Him, the Him being Jesus. We had over 400 students and 300 adults volunteer to do service projects in our community with the intention of sharing Jesus with the people we served.
This year our worship band was the Brandon Stubbs Band and they played a song each night that captured my heart. It is called O Come to the Altar. As I continue to listen to it this week the Holy Spirit is showing me more and more about myself and God’s love and grace for me.

With life on this earth I constantly feel the hurt and pain, but especially with my own sinful nature. When Jesus saved me He didn’t make it to where I would never sin again, He forgave (and continues to forgive) my sin and made me aware of just how much I need His unending grace. It overwhelms me daily how sinful I am. I’m judgmental, ungrateful, self-centered,… The list goes on and on. Yet Jesus calls me to continue to try to be like Him.

I continually try to do things out of my own strength. I try to make more money, take care of the house, land, work, council students, lead the youth praise band, take care of a husband, love on youth, … Yet I never seem to be good enough, strong enough, make enough,… And it’s because I try to do it out of my human strength instead of giving it to God and letting Him take care of it. I need to let Jesus fill me up at the well of everlasting water. And He continues to call me to let Him take over.

God wants me to come to the altar and crawl into His welcoming arms. He made a way for this to happen when He sent Jesus to give His perfect life so that I could have the forgiveness that need.

I have to leave my sin behind and not dwell on the continually mistakes I make. I don’t need to carry my burdens around because Jesus has called me to cast my cares on Him because He cares for me. He cares that we struggle financially. He cares that I worry about being a new mother. He cares that I am overwhelmed with going back to work. He cares!

I can take my sorrows to God and He will trade my hurt for joy. Not happiness, but joy. He can turn the ruins of my life into a new creation. The hurt from infertility is turning into a testimony of God’s goodness. The tears over bills due into provisions coming out of nowhere. The wonder of how everything will get done into a completed to do list with an abundance of time left over. I just have to listen to Jesus calling me and trust that He will continually take care of me.

There is no magical location or specific altar to run to. I can use my couch, seat in my car, or church pew as an altar. God is waiting on me to turn over my sorrow, climb into His lap, and let Him have full control. He wants me to remember the price Jesus paid for my forgiveness and recognize that with that gift also came a new name for me, daughter to the King.

When I can remember how I have received forgiveness, then I can take my eyes off of my selfish needs and wants and focus on praising Jesus. He is my Savior! He is wonderful! He deserves my praise and honor and glory.

So today when I choose to bear the burden of the cross, I will remember that I am simply waiting for the crown the Lord has for me in heaven. I can’t wait to return my crown to the altar of God as praises sing from my heart and mouth! Until that glorious day I must tell everyone about my Savior and how they too can have a relationship with Him. They can leave their burdens at His feet and let Him take care of them.

This is the heart of SPLASH. We are to turn our lives over and serve the Lord and share His grace, mercy, love, salvation with everyone we come into contact with.

Have you shared Jesus’ story with someone today? This week? This month? Year? Ever? Let today be the start of your telling the world about the Savior they need!


A Mom to Teenagers

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No, I have never given birth. No, we did not adopt. No, we do not foster. However, when one of the teenagers in our youth group needs us, we jump into action and become “parents” whenever. 

Thursday night we hosted our small group bible study. After everyone had left and I was cleaning up, Kyle tells me one of the girls in the youth group is having family problems and may need a place to stay. Well, let’s go get her. It turned out her stepdad had taken her back to her mom from a friends house that night, but last night she stayed with us.

I love the students in my class, but the teenagers in the youth group have me wrapped around their fingers, especially this young lady. 

Don’t worry. Her parents know she is with us! We had an ice cream outing last night, followed by her picking a movie (Star Wars) to watch at home. Today she will either tag along with us to a couples shower and Mother’s Day/birthday dinner or go hangout with some other girls from our youth group. 

I love that she feels safe with us, wants to stay with us, and knows she is loved by us! Being a youth pastor’s wife means so much more than going to camp, Six Flags, and church every time the door is open. It means loving teenagers and helping them the way Christ would in some of the most difficult times in their lives. 

If you can, stop for a minute and pray for this young lady and her family! She could use some comfort and peace in the storm her family is in. 

Where it All Began

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So how did you two meet? is always a question my husband and I get. It’s a simple story. I was 16. He was 18. My church only had 5 teenagers in the youth group. Kyle’s was much larger. One of my friends from school invited me to come hear him play drums in his youth group on Wednesday night. I went. Met a few people. Heard about a Dare to Share conference and convinced my mom to let me go. 
On the Friday we were leaving for the conference, I was texting someone in the church lobby and was approached by a cute guy with a ton of tootsie roll pops. He told me cell phones were not allowed and offered me a sucker. That’s the first interaction with Kyle that I remember. By the end of the weekend he had my cell phone number and we talked all the time. 

For weeks we simply hung out at a park after school. He tried to teach me how to yo-yo and play chess. He asked if we could hold hands, his were quite sweaty, as we walked around the park and talked. Eventually he asked me to be his date to his church’s prom. 

Our first date was full of dancing, laughing, and a sweet kiss that I will never forget. I still get butterflies thinking about it.     

 We dated for five and a half years before getting married. They weren’t all easy fun times, but they were full of laughing, talking, and falling more and more in love. Our story began at church and continues to be filled with memories in church. We love it that way! Christ is the center of our relationship. Jesus is what we have always had in common. As each of us continues to become more like Jesus Christ, we continue to grow closer together. 

How did you meet your spouse? What do you have in common? Is Christ at the center of it all?