Tag: #Recklesslove

I Love You More!

I had a conversation this past Sunday with my Sunday school class about the difference between making something and creating something.  Making means you have all the ingredients at your disposal.  You “make” a loaf of bread you don’t create it.  To create means to make something out of nothing.  What I didn’t realize during that conversation was how God would bring that idea back around to me this week.

I said the usual good night to my boys last night, “I love you, Everett”.   He responded, as he sometimes does “I love you more.”

“Not possible”  I replied.  “How do you know?”  he joked with me.

“Because I grew you inside of me” was my response.  And in my heart I felt it…at that moment…the enormity of that statement… Because I heard your heart beat before you did.  Because I felt your tiny fluttered movements before you could hear sound or perceive light.  Because I knew when you slept, and when you were awake even before you took your first breath.

What a glimpse of the glory and magic of creation God has given us with our children, and what a gift he has given to us as women.  Within our bodies, and as couples we are given a gift…the ability to create something from nothing.

And as I think about how intense and enormous my love for my children is, I can’t help but also reflect on the intensity, the enormity, the gloriousness of God’s love for us, his children (something created out of nothing).  As that awareness washed over me last night, I suddenly found a peace.

God is with me. Always.

This journey that I have been on this year is all a part of his plan for me. True, I can’t always see how, but I refuse to believe that it will be anything but beautiful.  I don’t know what tomorrow will bring, but do any of us ever really? All we can do is put our trust in our heavenly Father and believe that He has far more control over our outcomes than we ever could. We can take comfort in the many and abundant ways He reaches out to us constantly, to show us how much he loves us.  And I truly believe that children are one of his biggest gifts to us, because they give us a glimpse at what it truly means to love completely and unconditionally.

This isn’t the first time I’ve featured this video on my blog, but I can’t help but feel it’s appropriateness for today.

God bless,

Meredith

The Heart of Man

Last night I watched the most incredible documentary/movie on Netflix.  It was called “The Heart of Man”…the story of the prodigal son.

I don’t know how to describe this movie.  It is so incredibly well shot. The imagery is perfectly balanced and poignant.  While the movie focuses specifically on an addiction, it’s messages about shame, and the darkness we feel when we believe our behavior will   bring God’s judgement upon us, are messages that we all need to hear.

As someone who has been open about my own journey about not living up to expectations and guilt, the idea of letting go of the shame of not being the perfect person you think God wants you to be is liberating and powerful, and although part of my journey this month has been embracing this, I feel as if this movie reiterated that point for me.

I want to share with you with a few quotes that I found especially powerful and the Cory Asbury song from the end of the movie.

“I wonder if one of the greatest truths that I and men like me might hear is that God is with me in my darkness, that God is with me in my shame, and that He’s with me in my addiction, in my pain, in my unsettledness, in my woundedness, that I don’t want anybody else to see.”

” When He calls us a saint, he makes an incredible statement about us, we are no longer defined by being a sinner…and we have a choice.  I can continue on the way I have been going, or I can make a choice, in time, when I say God, this is who you say I am.  I am Your beloved and I am new, and I am good.”

“The way home, every single time, is this.  After my worst failure, after I am convinced this time I have gone too far and destroyed too much, I must believe who God says I am.  I am not defined by my erratic behaviors, but by something so much deeper, infinitely strong, and constant.  I am a new creature.”