In love with the ancient LOVE

Go God!

I have faced a few of my deepest fears in my life.  Losing a baby; a husband; a way of life; dreams crushed and hope all but walked off without me. (I felt like a little girl stranded at a big bus station).

There's a saying that starts a sentence with But God, it's not a popular way of starting a sentence if you know anything about proper English way of writing.

But God, keeps showing up! Did you know that God cannot lie?!?  Well, God cannot lie.  It says in Deuteronomy 7:13 that he will love you and bless you.... he will love you and bless you... he cannot lie, he loves you and is blessing you.  Do you feel God near? He wants to whisper of his love.  God has been shouting about his love for you for generations.  God knows you more deeply than any other.  He loves you, can you hear? Take a minute.

  In Jeremiah 31:3 God says, I have loved you with an everlasting love.  

Fear is the opposite of love.  Where there is fear, love is cut off. When I lost all those things, I saw fear come in.  Devouring fear like a  beast tearing at me from the inside, from the outside, consuming my thoughts. But God, he was all I had. God is love, where there is love there is not fear.  Over and over I found myself pouring out my heart to God, my tears, my blubbering through the pain of each circumstance.  He was there in those dark nights of the soul, when I felt I'd made my bed in hell.  God in his love was there.  He is here.  

My biggest fear was to be alone.  I was always worried I'd be left behind.  It probably came from a place of rejection.  So, if I look at my biggest difficulties; they were the times when I was becoming alone.  I didn't have another child or husband, but hope walked back in the door with God.  Hope came in wrapped in the love of God.  

Tonight, after our Advent devotion, Ethan and I were talking. He was saying that if he had a time machine he would go back and tell his younger self to beware of a few things he later has learned. It was an interesting conversation about how things might have been different.  What would I change if I could? 

Not sure I'd change much, because through all the pain the one thing that has remained is this unending love I know through God.  It grows, and I understand it in a different way through each circumstance.  I don't know if I'll ever understand all that I've lived and survived through, but I am growing in knowing God in a way I never dreamed possible. 

God cannot lie. God loves you.

The Lord Bless you and keep you,

The lord make his face shine upon you,

The Lord be gracious to you,

The Lord lift up your countenance and give you PEACE