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Growing
up, love was a four-letter word. It
lived down the road, or around the corner…anywhere but in my house. After an innocent need to say, “Excuse me,” I
commonly heard, “There’s no excuse for you.”
After I won the national DECA championship as a senior in high school (a
marketing organization keen on training and raising up the next generation of
business professionals and entrepreneurs) my mother retorted with, "I
always knew you could bull-@#*! your way out of a paper bag." My
“brother”, a 20-pound ball of fur with fangs, chased me up the stairs nightly,
egged on by both parents and pounding fists on the two-story walls. Parental entertainment at my expense occurred
regularly. But the words “I love you”?
As I already told you: a four-letter word. My young, injured heart took cover like a
child playing hide-n-seek in the curtains.
Now that
I’m a parent myself I realize my parents did the best they could…really. Without
the Lord in their hearts, their best was as tainted and skewed as the
sin-ridden world surrounding them. No human love is perfect, even if you
do love the Lord, or your children more than chocolate. And while I vowed “not to do what they did,”
this conviction alone ensured nothing.
Not doing the wrong thing does not equal the right thing. I was still human; no human love is
perfect. There had to be a more perfect
union between the human and the heavenly.
There had to be a better way to love the children under my own roof..jpg)
Enter in Love
Day.
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Enter in Love
Day.
Jeff and I used to poo-poo Valentine's Day. We called it a commercialized opportunity to
fill the coffers of American enterprise in the name of looooove (insert long,
southern drawl here). I knew Jeff loved me. And my hips really did
not want a box of chocolates to prove it (really, they didn’t). But it seemed
unnatural to overlook the children on Valentine's Day. The least I could
do was make a big deal out of the one day when they most expected to be loved,
right?
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Love Day
started on the all-expected February 14th when Sam, in all the wisdom
of Solomon, lamented, "I wish we had Valentine’s Day every
month!" Now I'm sure his wish had everything to do with scoring
extra sugar on a monthly basis, but he had a point. Why not love regular into
these precious little hearts? Why not
establish a tradition of long-expected affection? Isn’t that just what our heavenly Father
does? Love passionately; love patiently. Love with a deep, deep love that, like the song testifies, is vast, unmeasured, boundless, and free? Sam was onto something. Every month’s 14th day was
hereafter proclaimed, “Love Day.”.jpg)
In
preparation I bought out the local Dollar Store: left-over candy, heart-shaped everything
(from plates to place mats to balloons), anything red and sparkly. (And on
February 15th it was all on sale!!) When Love Day came around March
14th, I would be ready.
But while my
human aspirations soared, my human actions fell flat. I forgot.
March 14th, April 14th, May 14th all came and
went. By June, Love Day was long-lost memory, but not
long-forgotten.
“Lord,
what am I missing? I so desperately want to love these children as you
love me, and yet I forget, or more honestly blow-off my chance to love on these
children. How can I make this a more perfect love?
"Tell
them how much I love them" He replied.Ahhhh. The crickets from last week danced a little tango
while the Truth of this settled in. Tell
them of the love of Christ. Tell each one how much they are treasured
and lifted up and purposed for God’s Kingdom. I am only human, and human
love is never perfect. But God will never
fail them. God loves them with an everlasting love. God loves them perfectly:
vast, unmeasured, boundless, free.
So I set
to work writing individual love letters to each child, straight from
Scripture. Nothing more, and definitely
nothing less..jpg)
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Dearest
Sarah,
See how
very much your heavenly Father loves you, for He allows you to be called His child,
and you really are!
- God (1
John 3:1, NIRV)
Dear
Emilie,
I have
loved you with an everlasting love.- God (Jeremiah
31:3, NASV)
You belong
to me, my dear Samuel. The Spirit who lives in you is greater than the
spirit who lives in the world. - God (1 John 4:4, NLT)
I may not have experienced perfect
love at home, but Jesus understood my experience perfectly. And He already had
a rescue plan for the child behind the curtains.
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“No hiding
place has ever kept her save,” He says. “So
she hides inside herself. Now to reach
her heart the only way, is to hide in there as well. I will hide in there as well.” (I Will Find a Way, Jason Gray on the album Christmas Stories)
And that's
the point. Love Day is perfect because it pulls back the curtains on a
child’s heart. Jesus captured my heart
by hiding inside with the fearful little girl.
He wants to do the same for these four precious souls. I can either fill their hearts once a year
with tokens of an imperfect love. Or I
can fill it regularly with treasures of perfection – God’s very Word.
"I
like that one," Sam, my doubting Thomas, says after the second Love-letter
delivery. And I watch as True Love’s
words set something free inside his heart.
Jesus just took residence in a corner previously kept hidden.
Might I Pray for You?
Dearest Jesus,
We know you love us. Without flowers or chocolates or cards, your love lives deep inside our hearts. Forgive us for expecting human tokens of imperfect love to have the same impact as Your Word - heavenly treasures of perfection. Show us how to love with the love of Christ; how to live with the love of Christ; how to forgive with the love of Christ. Thank you for loving us day in and day out; for seeking us in our hiding places; for wanting to do the same for our precious little ones. Help us to trust You to find a way to hide in there as well. Amen.
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