And the Greatest of These is Love

I have an sweet aunt who has become a motherly friend since my own mother passed away. She has a 13 year old daughter who is my God-daughter and is a treasured possession of mine. This past Friday I received a text from my aunt: "can we come down this afternoon, Jennie's friend killed himself."

She is 13, he was 13. The world as she knows it came crashing down on her in an instant. This will be the hardest thing she will survive to date.

They arrived at my house before I did. When I walked in I just hugged and held on to Jennie as she and I both cried. I had no words for her. What could I have possibly said to such a raw pain, but in those few moments we were both protected from the ugliness of the world that swirls around us daily.

This could be my daughter in three years and what I want for her is to feel and cry and share, but to also turn to God. I want her to seek him as her refuge. We all have times in our lives where we have a choice, we can let whatever it is break us or we can search and find the comfort and love of our God. God needs to be my children's center. This event has caused me to be more diligent in seeking how to turn me from being my child's center to God being their center. Remember moving from challenged parenting to called parenting?

The first and most important command is to love our God. That means in all circumstances. Deuteronomy 6:5-9 says, "You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates."

Our love of our God needs to be evident and our children need to learn that love and what to do with that love each day. Love is an action and if we love God, we do our best each day to move and act in love. As our kids practice love actions I am humbled by the idea of how important this concept will be as they grow up and go through the trials and hurts of life. We make a choice to move in love, even when we are horrified and broken, there is a choice to make. We can wallow, which needs to be done also, but at some point we raise our teary eyes to the one who first loved us as proof through a love action that we want to be a part of his plan. We make a choice to praise him in the midst. Our praise may be tears, searching for his love and craving his arms, but that in itself is a love action. We could just as easily crawl up in a ball and sob. Yes, we can do that, and I am not saying we don't feel what has happened, but there is also a time for mind over matter or love actions over circumstances. We do have a choice to make in each circumstance. So love actions are external to our world around us, but also internal, when we make a choice to focus on God instead of what seems to overwhelm us.

'Will the Lord reject forever? Will he never show his favor again? Has His unfailing love vanished forever? Has His promise failed for all time? Has God forgotten to be merciful? Has he in anger withheld his compassion? Then I thought, "To this I will appeal: the years of the right hand of the Most High." I will remember the deeds of the Lord: yes I will remember the miracles of long ago. I will meditate on all your works and consider all your mighty deeds.' Psalm 77:7-12
Notice the flip in verse 10; 'Then I thought, "To this I will appeal..."' In the midst of feeling broken and hurt, Asaph, the psalm's author, makes a conscious decision to look at what the Lord had done in his life and to focus on the wonderful history he had with the Lord. That is a conscious love action.

While our kids are somewhat protected from the world, while we have more control of their time and schedule and intakes, we need to teach them about the love of God and create a chance for them to begin to develop a history with him so they can at some point look back and rely on what they have seen him do in their lives. He can do things in anyone's life, regardless of their age. If we teach love actions now, practice them with our children, give the opportunity to talk about them, will they return to them when they encounter a horrible circumstance or resist the urge to strike out in anger or frustration? Psalm 78: 5-7 says, "He decreed statues for Jacob, and established the law in Israel, which he commanded our forefathers to teach their children, so the next generation would know them, even the children yet to be born, and they in turn would tell their children. Then they would put their trust in God and would not forget his deeds but would keep his commands. "And the greatest of these is love..."

By His Grace