Happy Valentine’s Day!
Today I choose to write about the perfect love of God and the imperfect love of Ally (self).
He gave us His Son, Jesus, to demonstrate what true love looks like. Lately, I’ve been overly fixated with national and international current affairs. The news have succeeded at deafening and blinding us from love and leading us into more division, fear, and pure hatred for one another. If we aren’t yet fearful, divisive or hateful, it could be we succumbed to the worst kind of attitude, apathy.
My dear readers, love must first be rooted in our homes as we embrace our spouses, our children, and our families; it then sprouts into our communities through our neighborhoods, schools, and churches. Valentine’s isn’t about a box of chocolates and a dozen red roses, but it’s in the how we express our love every day of every week of every month of every year. We are way too focused on the big picture and in how others choose to react, but we forsake where the real influence of love should initiate.
Remember?
It starts with me.
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.”
-John 3:16-17
Joshie is now making us enter a new phase of uncharted waters with his terrible two’s (and he hasn’t turned two yet!) Yesterday left me feeling disconcerted because for the first time ever, I didn’t like my son. Don’t get me wrong, I love every inch of him, but his behavior of constant disobedience has become border-line intolerable. He’s only recently learned to fully listen after he had tubes inserted in order to drain fluid out of his ears with the hopes he starts speaking soon. I know he can now hear my emphatic “no” and “be gentle” yet he chooses to defiantly look at me, smile, and repeat bad behavior. Also, don’t get me started on the numerous and exaggerated tantrums as they have made me, the mother, over react in frustration as well.
I think Drew Barrymore gets me…
(Now, are mommy tantrums a thing? Because I had a few myself…)
It was only one day, but I know it’s the beginning of many more…
Today was day two of same behavior. It was supposed to be a quick trip to the grocery store, but this strong-willed boy wanted to run all around as he carelessly bumped into people in their attempt to shop peacefully. I chased after him as I apologized for his new nature, but I only received sympathetic grins from the wiser generation.
They understood me, thank God.
One even allowed me to skip her in line as she watched me forcefully hold my son’s hand to prevent him from running away from me…. for the hundredth time today.
When I was once child-less and serving tables, I remember hoping I wouldn’t get stuck with kids in my section. I’d stare at moms with their perfected-messy-buns, yoga pants and stained (of only God knows what) comfy shirts as their children created an astounding mess for me to clean after and wondered, how can they do it? I only served them for an hour of their day, but they get their kids for the rest of their lives! Let’s just say, it didn’t give me something to look forward to when we found out about my pregnancy.
My fashion tendencies were always as relaxed as these moms, but I am now, less by choice and more as necessity of survival, that messy-bun-yoga pants-stained shirt-wearing-dark circles that no eye concealer can hide- mom and I am still waiting for the answer of how.
How do we get to do this EVERY. SINGLE. DAY??
Why am I writing about this on Valentine’s Day?
(and not about my hot stud of a husband, as I was planning to?)
For the record: I meant to upload this post yesterday, but wife/mommy duties called ahead of the blog…
Because it has made the most quoted verse, John 3:16, in the Bible come to life. It is a verse that has followed me through missions trips across the world and I’ve solely used for evangelistic purposes.
It remained in my brain to share with others, but it didn’t reside in my heart… until today.
Driving home yesterday, tearfully may I add, I asked God a series of “why“ questions. I knew I was driving to an unkempt home with dirty floors and toys all across the living room and dishes in the sink that needed to be put away days ago. With an intensifying sun glare and an exhausted and boisterous toddler whose refusal to nap was causing him to really get under my skin, I put on my shades and really attempted to focus on the road ahead while not getting distracted with the clamor behind me. I had already stopped the car once to close the trunk as my dear son now loves to sneak my keys out of my bag when we’re out and about running errands and play with them by pressing random buttons until he achieves to do something with them. So my distracted self hurries to buckle him in his car seat and run to the driver seat to make the ride quick and easy without realizing the trunk is wide open. Then I stopped the car a second time to take his sippy cup away as he was vehemently shaking it to the point of spilling its contents all over himself. He didn’t get what he wanted and a tantrum was the following outcome of this never-ending story.
But sometimes I don’t get what I want, sometimes WE don’t get what we unfailingly hope for, and that’s when God speaks directly to my heart with clarity and John 3:16 in the forefront of my soul. If I were to rank my spiritual discipline and emotional maturity, I can sometimes be a toddler who doesn’t always receive what was expected and behave accordingly. Perhaps my physical reaction is a bit more disguised, but with a few tears and a sassy attitude, the heart of the mommy tantrum remains deep within me.
But God…
He chooses to love me regardless of my silly outbursts as equally as He chooses to love this chaotic world we live in, so much so He gave Himself as ransom. That’s the love I cling on days like yesterday and today. Whenever I have something negative to say about my toddler, or about the world and its inhabitants, I am reminded to humbly get on my knees and pray for God to reveal to me an ounce of His overall vision and to grant me the kind of compassion He graciously offers me when I’m don’t feel worthy of His love. Not my vision, but for His perfect will to practically manifest itself in my life; which will lead me to love like Him and to give myself as an offering of sacrifice to my son with the mere purpose of teaching him from a young age about God’s perfect love despite my blatant imperfections. When we make the commitment to follow Christ, we turn into His vessels filled with the newness of His Spirit and we are given purpose to spread a message of hope and necessary mercy in our wretched existence.
And yes, it all starts with me and my reckless son.
The following verse makes it even more telling because He didn’t come to condemn as we program ourselves to think He should or could, but to save us from our own self-destructive selves. His love disciplines, but it doesn’t punish as to cause us pain for vengeance. In our frustrations with others, our flesh begs us to do the latter, to inflict possibly even more pain than we have ever had to endure as retaliation.
From the inconsequential moments of dealing with a growing tot to traumatic life-events that require us to react above the fray, whether deserving or not, we must always conduct ourselves in love. I am personally more inclined to apply into action this absolute truth when a significant event has shaken my core, whereas I forsake it in the ordinary moments of my every day living. Love is the most discussed and written about philosophy because it is the easiest to talk about, but my friends, to follow it consistently brings complexity because as imperfect as we are, we must relate with other imperfect humans; and we should not be left in utter shock when we encounter dissonance in our messy relationships, yet we always find ourselves there, sunk in bitter disappointment. And yes, it royally stings because there’s absolutely nothing we can do to change people’s hearts or the outcome of the matter, but God promises to transform us when we encounter ourselves in various trials and, as cheesy as it may sound, if we surrender the key of our hearts to Him and allow Him to do some major surgery.
Unfortunately, it happens to be an all or nothing type of lifestyle. Loving people at their best behavior isn’t authentic, but it is at their worst when our true love for them is tested through these storms of life. The mornings with Joshie are the most satisfying because I get to coddle him with much affection, but as the day progresses so does my expressions of love fade as his tantrums and mischievous ways emerge. When night arrives, I gleefully bid him sweet dreams because another day ended with all parties alive.
We make it one day at a time.
Nevertheless, I am once again convicted of my own hypocrisy as I hold dear to this view, yet struggle to live it out on a daily basis. But just because we struggle, it doesn’t negate truth. It shouldn’t give us the right to discard unconditional love as relative and dependent upon whether we can attain it or not. Our ability to attain true self-less love can’t rely on our human selves as it can only originate and develop when we connect with the One who created it and sacrificed Himself for our well-being and salvation.
In the spirit of connecting deeper with God, we must worship. It isn’t necessarily exclusive to singing praises, but worship merely takes place when we rightly respond to God in surrender. My worship in this current season of motherhood consists of folding mountains of laundry and cleaning a mess on the floor right after I cleaned the whole house without begrudging my way through the process, but thanking Him for giving me a home for our little family and clothes to dress our bodies.
Worship is that simple.
It doesn’t require a talented voice or a poetic mind, only a surrendered heart.
In Psalm 29, David worshiped God in midst of physical and allegorical thunderstorms as he encountered constant persecution for simply being anointed as King.
I surely am no King, just a mom trying to survive these simple days, but I kept reciting Psalm 29, verse 10 and 11,
“The Lord will give strength to His people; The Lord will bless His people with peace.”
Then I figuratively (because I was still driving, of course) closed my eyes as tears kept streaming down my face and intently listened to the words of a song playing on the radio as it shuffled through my Switchfoot collection.
And there it was, another gentle conviction,
Let Your Love Be Strong In this world of news I've found nothing new I've found nothing pure Maybe I'm just idealistic to assume that truth Could be fact and form That love could be a verb Maybe I'm just a little misinformed As the dead moon rises And the freeways sigh Let the trains watch over the tides and the mist Spinning circles in our skies tonight Let the trucks roll in from Los Angeles Maybe our stars are unanimously tired Let your love be strong And I don't care what goes down Let your love be strong enough To weather through the thunder clouds Fury and thunder clap Like stealing the fire from your eyes All of my world hanging on your love Let the wars begin Let my strength wear thin Let my fingers crack Let my world fall apart Train the monkeys on my back to fight Let it start tonight When my world explodes When my stars touch the ground Falling down like broken satellites
Ally Velsor 