Here's an example: we went to see the Sunday matinee of the Hobbit. Afterwards, we planned to meet some friends at their house (about a 15 minute drive in the country) to have stew in the woods. Stew in the woods is sort of a tradition. We go into the woods and make a fire and make stew. It is more awesome than it sounds. I still think it sounds pretty awesome. We were really looking forward to this. But on the way home from the movie theatre, it was snowing really hard and the roads were slippery. Once we got home, we had to have a long discussion on whether or not to go to our friend's house for stew in the woods. Finally, we decided against it, because of the road conditions, but we were disappointed. That was when our neighbour knocked on the door. She had brought frozen pizzas, salad, ice cream, candy canes, and even a DVD to watch. It was everything we needed to have a fun evening! God is WAY too good to me sometimes. But I am OK with that.
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| Christmas dinner at our place! |
There were other things that made this Christmas wonderful: Handel's Messiah, Dutch blitz, Tim Tam slams, and finding bacon in the mailbox. It was fun to share Christmas with our friends from school who were visiting: last week our friends from the Bahamas, Ghana, and Mauritius were here, and for Christmas our guests were from the Bahamas and from China.
I am writing this from my room, which is really messy right now with Christmas gifts and packing for Urbana, which starts tomorrow. I am very ready to hear from God there.
Now I will share some thoughts about love that I wrote down over a year ago. The other day I was going through some papers and I found this:
So I had this thought today about what I wanted people to say at my funeral. I really want people to say I loved them. Like REALLY loved. Like I want to love so freely, so vulnerably and just so extraordinarily. I want to love in a way that is outside of social norms, that shows your love to everyone I know. Because you know it is not really normal to show love to people in our society. I mean, everybody says things like "Everybody should just love one another," but where do you see that? Instead people are getting mad at other people for butting in line or they are ignoring someone's text just to play it cool or they are talking about others behind their back. And I do those things too! But love is different! God's radical love can switch these things all around and upside-down and show the world His grace. And I realized today that I haven't really been showing that love. I have not been that open with people, and I am unwilling to make that investment in people's lives. I selfishly focus on things like schoolwork and even ACF activities, and forget the importance of building relationships. I guess in some cases relationships just kind of become built on their own but more often I need to be intentional in showing my love for people by giving them my time and listening to them and encouraging them.
God, I pray that I embody Your love today and everyday. God, if I really live our this love, it could seriously change everything around me. God, I pray that I do actually live this love, love as defined in 1 Corinthians 13. Here's what's holding me back from loving fully: I am scared of getting hurt, scared of being wounded, that other people will think I am weird or won't return my love or whatever. But that's how You are different. I don't love people for their sake, exactly, or even for my sake, even though it works out best for the both of us in the end. No, I love people because I love You. You first loved us. Unconditionally, relentlessly, unfailingly. God, I am hopeful for what my life will look like as a) a background player in Your great story and b) a lover.
Amen.
