Trust vs. Love

It has been slowly dawning on me.....I have trust issues.
That's no surprise really....too many bouts of legalism and rounds of rejection will do that to a gal.

People really can't be trusted ....can we? But not all people are completely un-trust-worthy.  Just some are.... honestly we all know at least one......those people where sometimes, you can't trust them.
Put a different way.....some people shouldn't be trusted most of the time.

The end result, of my "several rounds" with folks/groups of folks that I trusted with my heart/life and they turned out not to deserve that trust.....well.....it's affected how I trust God. (Discernment, and my lack of it in the past....well...that is another blog waiting to be written)

Round three. And the bell rang, LOUD and clear. She was down for the count!! Will, she get up again?

Oh look, there she is....staggering to her feet. Stumbling out of the ring. Walking shakily through the door. Time for a time out she says (her doctor said so too) ....she doesn't want to play....anymore..... for awhile at least....

When she comes too and her head clears a bit...she has her doubts about trust. Can you blame her?

Trust God eh? About what? Can't ask and hope for a trouble free life. That's a fairy-tale that's not goin' happen.

And so she goes to prayer. Cause she really does want to trust in her God. He has been there all along. In her corner. He isn't a human. He's gotta be trust worthy....but she needs to know how to trust again....and so she prays.....asks for help.....and what starts out as a written prayer turns into this.....

Dear Lord,
In my out-loud-rant yesterday You heard me say....."I don't know how to trust God. What do I trust Him with? For what? If I say, think or feel that I should trust God to protect me from harm, pain and problems...well, that is a false hope!" Life is just a series of pain, problems and harm.

So, God what should I entrust to you? Or how do I trust in You?

That you are unchanging and heaven and my place in it, is real. Just read 1 Peter 1:9 "receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls" and I know I can trust you with that. But how do I continue to trust in your love for me. Especially when life presents one trial after another....43 years worth and I am not feeling the love right now.....

I guess Jesus could claim the same about His stint on earth.  Extremely humble birth, childhood and ministry all ending with rejection and a horrific death.

So somehow I need to trust, have faith and KNOW I am loved...even if I don't feel it.

This verse came to mind....."all things work together for good to those who trust God" So all things may not be good, but they work together for good. I can trust in that. Wait, do I have that verse right? Better look it up.

All things work together for good to them that LOVE God, to them that are called according to his purposes - Romans 8:28

And now I gotta ask....Do I LOVE you, God?

I seem to love myself to be sure. I would love a trouble free life.

Now I question "What is love?"

(and here's where the prayer turned into a "preach" between myself and God ......until I decided to blog it....haha)  

The world, our culture, would have us believe that love is fluffy, pink, sweet, cute and warm. But you take one look at your life and the people you claim to love and you see right off that love isn't usually those things.

Love is hard.
Love is work. It's hard work!
Love is denying yourself.
Love is picking up, showing up and serving up.
...when you don't want to....and you would rather be somewhere else.....doing something else.

Love does the impossible. It loves the unlovable. (ever witnessed a three year old throw a tantrum? how many times does a parent say "Good job, you're cute")

Love sees the mistakes, the faults, the shortcomings, the sin...and yet.....it keeps on extending grace, and acceptance, and friendship and love.

Love listens.
Love hugs.
Love cries.
Love smiles through those tears.
Love laughs...in spite of itself.
Love cooks, and cleans, and picks those things up for the hundredth, thousandth time.
Love chides, encourages, brags, scolds.
Love doesn't always say "yes"...sometimes it must say "no"
Love will batter your heart one time and lift your spirit another.
Love hurts, deep down where it often doesn't show......and yet.....

Tomorrow.....tomorrow love will get up and do it all over again.

And so I realize that love is not one, but two things. Pain and Joy.

Yes, society would have you mistakenly think that love is teddy bears, chocolate and roses. But often love is sweat, work, tears and a whole pile of dying to yourself. And we have to agree that it's totally worth it....where would this world be without love?

Look what Jesus did for us. Blood, sweat and tears. And we can hardly claim to be worth it. That didn't matter. He did the cross anyways. And He would do it all over again, if He had to.

Why?
I have no idea.

Cause love, it's an unfathomable mystery.
A beautiful, deep, mystery full of grace and acceptance beyond understanding.

That Jesus would love-to-death sinners like us.
Sinners in all our full blown filth and corruption with the stench of death on us.

What did God see in us?
I have no idea.

But He sees a future that we can only wonder about. Eternity. That thing that happens when our soul leaves the shroud behind. The soul has to go somewhere...and before Jesus...before the cross....the choices were....well there were no choices...there was only one place and that was down. Into the pit. Hell.

But Jesus came and loved us like no one had ever loved us before and now we have a choice.

Acknowledge or deny.
Accept or refuse.
Repent or defy.

We can choose to respond to the greatest love this world will ever know and receive eternal acceptance that is "literally out-of-this-world".....an eternity in heaven with a God who loves us. 
Yes, US!! Can you believe it?

A God reaching out in love, morning after morning, day after day, year after thousands of years.

And He will do it again tomorrow. And the next day and the day after that...until Jesus returns.

Even so come Lord Jesus.
Amen.

After this prayer that turned into a preach.....I see the reason why I love this God of mine. I understand again why it is that I can trust Him with today, and tomorrow.
He's in my corner. He's got everything covered.
Even the pain....it's covered in His grace.
And once again.....I am thankful.

Kindness is free......

I appreciate words.  It's enjoyable to read them and work with them. I like how words can bless me, challenge me, teach me. They can make me laugh, cry and wonder. Books, blogs, stories, web-pages....there are no shortage to words these days.

This morning I read a bunch of words strung together that made me laugh out loud. A genuine laugh, the kind that is good for your health. And then I cried a little..... cause well, for me at least those words struck a chord.

The quote was in a comment below a touching, on-line, story about an adoptive family that had been blessed by a kind gesture from a stranger.

And for me...the comment, the string of words that made a sentence, kinda summed up life.

I must warn you that the quote includes a little, four, letter word. You must stop reading this blog if such words offend you.....

"Kindness is free... sprinkle that shit everywhere"

If laughter truly is the best medicine. Well, I had my dose for today. :)

Life has a bit of everything in it.

Pain, joy.

Gain, loss.

Laughter, tears.

Grief, kindness.

Order, chaos.

Love, hatred.

Happiness, sadness.

Worry, peace.

Abundance, lack.

Illness, health.

We each have a "plate" and to each of us all of the above will be served out to us at some point in our lives.

And when the "#!*@" hits the fan....and trust me it will......where would we be without kindness?

When it's our turn to have a dose of pain, loss, tears, worry, lack, illness, chaos, or grief......what is it that gets us through?

Kindness. Love. Grace.

Sometimes from strangers. Usually from those close to us.

But where ever it comes from ....it's what makes life bare-able.

I thank God for kindness.

And for the lady, pulling to a stop, who gave me friendly smile as I walked by.... for the new girl in town who doesn't know anyone.....well ......that smile warmed my soul.

I've had my fair share of trials the last while and what this quote....

 "Kindness is free... sprinkle that shit everywhere"  

...says to me......is stop focusing on your own pain. Everybody has pain. Share kindness instead...we all have to help each other get through this.

We don't always know who has what on their plate. But I wanna be the person that showers sprinkles of kindness on lives that come close to me.

Not the kind of love, joy, peace, happiness that is in denial of pain...but the kind that keeps sprinkling kindness in spite of the pain.

Does sprinkling kindness have to cost a lot of money? No.

Compliments. Hugs. Smiles. Emails. Facebook likes and comments.

Maybe the cost of a stamp, card, a piece of chocolate, bowl of soup, or a pot of spring flowers?

It doesn't mean having to spend a lot of money....but when it comes out of your own pain....it's not free I suppose....but it's more valuable. And appreciated.

And so I am especially grateful to those who have reached out to lighten my load while they were carrying heavy burdens themselves.

Guess that is what life is about. Guess that is what God's grace allows us to do.

Help others, spread kindness. Be the joy in an otherwise painful day.

And so I will leave you with this thoughtful quote that made me laugh through the pain of a bad headache.....

"Kindness is free... sprinkle that shit everywhere"  

Happy sprinkling!

Even if.....

Always been one to "count my blessings" even in the hard times. It's a good exercise and helps you see the silver lining.

But when a hard time lasts for awhile and has a ways to go yet? Counting blessings can become a drag.

It's even harder when you are discouraged.

Trying to look for blessings when you're in a black fog? It's tough! Like swimming up-stream and I don't even know how to swim!! . Makes my list not so much about my blessings but all the things that are going wrong. Sometimes that list seems longer than my blessing list.

That doesn't do much for lifting my spirits.

Had a devotional given to me called "Jesus Calling". It's real good, uplifting, helpful. Yesterday it had a line that hit me. I going to paraphrase it.  When life throws troubles at you, just whisper "I trust you, Jesus" and rest in the fact that He does know and will help you through it.

Thought that would be a great  line to start the New Year with. So I posted the words "I trust you, Jesus" in a few places around the house. Worked like a charm yesterday. Well, yesterday was a good day and to be honest I don't think I noticed the notes.

But today, it's been snowing for the third day in a row. You know how much work it is to move piles and piles of snow? I learned something new that I didn't know before. Snow blowers come in different sizes. Duh. Of course they do. And ours isn't Penetang size apparently. :(  Now it's clunking and banging and who knows how much longer it'll last. And winter is just starting.

Have you heard that our new house has a sieve for a basement? Yeah, so we really want to keep the snow away from the house so that come spring we don't have an indoor pool. The snow is already past my knees. How do we keep that much snow away from the house with a snow blower that is dying?

So today, while I listened to the clunking and banging of the snow blower.....my eyes fell on the post-it-note in the kitchen "I trust you, Jesus"   Right, trust in the troubles. Gotta do that.

Well, it was a long two hours listening to that "too-small-for-Penetang" snow blower labour it's way through today's snow offering. So it was a good job there was also a post-it-note in the dining room. And in the hallway. And in the washroom.

Trust in the hard times. This just-beginning-winter, watching the snow come down, realizing that it'll trickle (or gush) into the basement come spring and knowing that there is absolutely nothing that we can do until summer...well, it seems to qualify as a "hard time".

And post-it-notes or not it's a painful pill to swallow.

Then it was supper time. And my blessings started piling up in front of me. Hearty, homemade turkey soup. Crackers that I had made from scratch and everyone was enjoying. Cheese and coleslaw. Tea and warm light. Healthy and safe loved ones. The furnace kicking in without anyone having to split wood or throw a log on the fire....pumpkin pie waiting to be enjoyed.....

Made me think of a verse in the Bible....

"Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines,
thought the olive crop fails, and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen, and no cattle in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
I will be joyful in God my Saviour"

And I figured I could still count my blessings. What's a bit of snow, frozen or melted? We still have food on our table and loved ones to share it with.

Of course I had to look that verse up cause I wasn't exactly sure where it was.....turns out good, ol' Habakkuk said that....and the verse following it was what I really needed.....

"The Sovereign Lord is my strength;
he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
he enables me to go on the heights."

Heights sound good. Certainly better than this rut I've been in for too long.

Going to start listening to my post-it-notes.... "I trust you, Jesus - My Sovereign Lord and my strength"

Now I gotta do the dishes.
But don't worry there is a note over my sink too :)