I love "love"

In the book crazy love Francis Chan is talking about his wife's grandma who was totally and completely in love with Jesus. She is quoted as saying, "I love love!" I was thinking about that today...don't we all love "love". I am in Colorado and so I am getting to spend a lot of time with my family. This is family I see once or twice a year. My cousins are all younger and so every time I see them they are different. My twelve year old cousin, McKenna, is almost taller than me! Now I realize this does not take much but still it is just so crazy. My family all comes from different lives, different stories. My grandma lives alone...well it is her and her dog, Mickey, who she doesn't really like that much actually. My aunt (my mom's sister) comes from a house full of boys, four boys and two males dogs to be exact. My uncle (my mom's brother) brings his two kids over (one boy and one girl), leaving his wife at home for reasons I won't even get into on a blog. And then there is my mom coming from Missouri, a place she really doesn't care for but yet she loves because that is where her family is. We all come from different problems, worries, and struggles yet when we come together we are this united family that just picks up right where we left off the last time we were together (like I said that could have been anywhere from 6 months to a year ago). We love each other. And that is just something to be grateful for. I was talking to my mom today about how different her life was compared to my life. I really am blessed beyond measure. I don't even realize it sometimes but the Lord has blessed me and given me so much love in my life.



I had someone tell me that I used the word love a lot. Do you think you can really use it too much? I am sure you can...it gets overused and misused plenty. But the word love is something that the Lord emphasized so many times in the bible. It is used in the old testament through Genesis and Exodus, commanding the people to love and to show love. In Deuteronomy the Lord gives us the greatest command, to love the Lord Jesus with all your heart, all your soul and all your strength. Something we could spend our entire lives doing and never fully accomplishing I don't think. In Joshua it says if we love the Lord we will be like the sun and rise with strength. Later on in Job we see his great love for the Lord as He is tested and pushed to the limit, enduring and looking to the Lord with love. And of course the Psalms and Proverbs are full of verses on love. Verses on loving the Lord, loving others and best of all verses describing Jesus' great and perfect love for us.

The OT is full of love...and it just continues on in the NT. In the NT we are told to love our enemies, love our fathers and mothers, and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. We are even told to love each other as Christ has loved us...wow. We are told that if we love others then people will know we are disciples of Christ. And then the well known passage in Corinthians defining love. The verses go on and on. I think God knows that we are a forgetful people and we must be reminded and reminded. He calls us to love. We are made to love, so it is not surprising that we love "love" the way we do.

Whether we long to be loved my a parent or a sibling...or maybe we long to feel love from a friend...or perhaps we dream and anticipate the day we will be loved by another and spend the rest of our lives loving that person...we are a people that long for love. And you know what....? I LOVE that! :) I know that this blog is kind of long and a bunch of mixed thoughts but they are thoughts I have had lately and so I tried to make them as clear as possible. I wrote a poem once called "Romance" and it is about the greatest love and I would like to share it with you. I do not share my poetry often but I feel like this once fits with the topic so I will. I hope you enjoy it.

Romance

Rising early morning awoke by my true love.

The sunshine...warm hands of my creator touching my face.

My God sings to me His many written love songs

With His perfectly created birds.

I listen with a quiet heart feeling more loved then ever.

Clear, blue, soft...romantic.

The sky overlooks me as the Lord hugs me with the crisp cool breeze.

Closing my eyes I feel the soft lips of the Lord on my cheek...

I look upwards to see the rain beginning to fall...Love.

I lift my hands and begin to dance in the warmth falling from heaven.

Darkness begins to fall over me.

Fingers of my Father run through my hair as the wind of the night settles.

As I make my way to bed I look out the window

To see the Lord wink as me with a shooting star.

I close my eyes and talk to the lover of my soul.

Looking forward to another day of experiencing the most intimate relationship...

My Father's love for me.

A Time For Everything

So it has been over two months since my last post. I won't even begin to try and catch you up on my last two months. The main thing that happened was graduation. That's right, the last time you read my blog you were talking to "A College Graduate Bound Jessica Vaeth Who Had No Idea What Her Future Held In The Fall" but now you are reading the blog of a college graduate (B.A. in Psychology thank you very much) who will be attending Lindenwood University in the fall of 2010 and working on her MAC (Master of Arts in Counseling)...FOR FREE. Can you believe that? God is so good to me. And it was all in His perfect timing. Which is something I have been thinking a lot about lately...time.





Time is a weird thing if you really think about it. Have you ever had something that you wanted to accomplish in a certain amount of time...for example...weight loss. I want to lose weight and get into shape because in August (2 months) I will be going to Hawaii!! :) But two months feels so short! I feel like I am running out of time already! But then have you ever had something that you couldn't wait for...for example...seeing your friends or someone special to you. For me it is the people I go to school with and I won't see them for about 2 1/2 months. Do you know how long that seems?? When in reality the time is the same. I guess it is different for everyone. My best friend, Erica is getting married in December. That is 6 1/2 months. That may seem like a long time for her and Matt who probably can't wait to be married but then I think about her mom and dad and brother...I think about how I feel as her best friend and I think...holy cow, 6 1/2 months is hardly any time left with her before she gets married!





I read a verse today about time.


Ecclesiastes 3:11


He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.





Everything has its perfect time. A time to graduate, a time to fall in love, a time to marry, a time to get that perfect job, perfect house, perfect family, a time to spend with family, a time to love....I find comfort in that. The Lord has made everything beautiful in its time. Any other time would not be sufficient because it would not be His timing. So my prayer for myself is that I would live in the moment that the Lord has given me because the things happening in this time are beautiful and I would hate to look back and realize I missed out on God's plan for that time of my life. I pray you would do the same. I think of my readers and the things you look forward to or dread...marriage, Africa, summer work outs, summer wedding planning...whatever it may be just know that the Lord has a time for it all. :)





Ecclesiastes 3:1-3
A Time for Everything


There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven:
a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build...