When I Grow Up, I want to be Her Husband

"Hey Mommy!" said my three year old, almost four year old son as he jumped on to his bed for his night time story.

"Hi Sweetie!" 

"I need to tell you something. When I grow up, I am going to be Lucia's husband." He said with a big smile!

"Honey, Lucia is your sister. You can't be her husband but you can always protect her. A different lady will be your wife someday."

He was confused, but in true three year old fashion, changed the subject right away. 

That conversation struck me though, and almost made me want to cry. In his innocence, and as young as he is, he has a true love for his sister. He loves her so much that he wants to be with her forever. He couldn't imagine anyone else taking her place. 

What kind of love is this? This is the kind of love we all long to give and the kind of love we all long to receive. 

But as we get older, we break a little more easily. 

As we get older, we lose our purity of heart through sin, abuse, neglect, trials, sufferings of any sort, and that love starts to come with price tags and conditions. 

I will love you as long as you never hurt me. 

I will love you as long as you live up to my expectations. 

I will love you as long as you don't love anyone else but me, 

My children get it. They get that free love. This is, in part, why I love the movie, "Frozen". Anna and Elsa have a true love for one another that isn't broken through the years. It isn't suddenly swept up in emotions and hormones from a prince charming entering the picture. It is through good and bad, cold and warmth, everlasting. 

This is the kind of love we are made for. Nothing else will satisfy us. This is the kind of love that a child can give with all his or her might! But this is the kind of love that only God can give, that lasts and heals and will never change. It will never have a price tag or a condition. It is freely given to us who want it and accept it. 

It is arms open wide, outstretched on the cross, pouring down from our Savior's side. No one can take our place. No one can take His place in our lives. 

This love calls us to love beyond earth and feelings and hormones and romance and plants us deep into the heart of Christ, where we can learn to love like Him. 

I fail so often at loving people. I start to feel bad when I'm short tempered or impatient or struggling to forgive - It is easy to feel like a failure and let that consume me. When I look to the cross, though, I see that love requires sacrifice. To love authentically really means to put another person before yourself, and while I may never be called to give up my life in death for someone I love, I am called to die to my self, my own selfishness, my own pride, my own way of doing things and LOVE that person, SERVE that person, and PRAY for that person. 

God bless you tonight and I pray we can love more. "What the world needs now... is love, sweet love..." Not fluffy gone in a day love, but everlasting Love. 

Amen! 

I Don't Give Up on You. I Surrender You.

I just returned last week from an amazing trip doing music ministry at LA Congress in Anaheim. While I was performing at the World Library Publications booth, I introduced my song, "Serenity" based on the Serenity prayer (and available on iTunes *wink*) as a song about surrender and letting go and submitting to/following God's will. The words to the refrain are

"Lord give me the serenity to stay where I am, 

the courage to take another step, 

and the wisdom to know I can't do either without You." 

After I finished the song, a woman approached me, holding my CD's, and said, "Was that song called, 'Let Go'?" And I said, "No, that's a different song." She said, "I thought you said this song is about letting go?" 

I had to laugh. A lot of my songs are about surrender, letting go... releasing my hold on things I can't control! It is an ongoing theme in my life. (She bought both CD's, so maybe we have something in common!) 

Above daily chores, health, stress, or responsibilities, I think it's hardest for me to let people go. 

"I love you and you are Mine" is one of my favorite lines from a song, spoken from Scripture. It is so difficult - near impossible for me - to say, "You love him/her and he/she is Yours." 

I don't have any trouble at all with "You love him/her." It's the "Yours" part that I have trouble with. 

My son. My daughter. My husband. My mother. My father. My sister. My brother. My friend. 

Mine, Mine, Mine. 

Not. Yours. At least we can share responsibility, ok, Lord? 

When our loved ones are sick, dying, leaving the faith, or making self-destructive choices, our instinct is to grab on to them, to grasp and cling to maddening, smothering affect. We feel unsettled, hurt, frantic, every muscle tense, trying to figure out what WE can do. What I can do. And we feel like failures if we can do nothing. We feel powerless and helpless. We would die for that person to be healed, to turn back to the faith, or to choose a better life for themselves. 

But Someone already did die for this person to be healed, turn back, choose life. 

Jesus. Jesus, You died before I breathed my first breath. You died for my loved ones before they opened their eyes in this world. Jesus. 

Why can't I trust? Why can't I know beyond my mind and deep down to the core of my being that God loves this person more than I do and is pursuing them more than I can? Why is it so hard to remember that this person's healing and salvation is not in my hands? If I don't believe these things, then I can't adequately say that I believe in an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving God. 

I have to let you go. I have to surrender you. 

I don't let you go in the sense that you are hanging from a cliff and I release my hold on your hand, letting you fall to your destruction. Rather, I carry you in my heart and I gently place you in the hands of our Savior who loves you more than I do. All your needs, all your desires, all your questions, all your sickness, all your struggles, everything. 

And I let go. You are His child. Not mine. In trusting me with your care, my son, my daughter, my husband, my mother, my father, my sister, my brother, my friend... the Lord has given me great responsibilities. I will love, forgive, care for, and pray for you. But above all, the greatest thing I can do for you, is gently place you in our Father's hands who knows your heart more than I ever could and Who can satisfy you more than I am capable. 

He loves you, and you are His. 

Amen. 

My Spouse Drives Me Crazy

I told my husband I was going to write this blog and he said, "Ah! Are you going to make me look bad?" Haha, no, I said... I'm going to make ME look bad.

Recently, I've been reading the book It is Well by Chris Faddis in which he tells the tragic, yet faith-filled, hope-filled story of losing his wife, Angela, to cancer. I followed Chris and Angela on their Facebook support page and cried at every post or picture posted. The posts spoke of very real suffering. The posts spoke of hope in Christ. The posts spoke of beautiful spousal love which transcended every mediocre version of love in movie or song, past feeling to dying to one another spiritually. The pictures showed their family loving one another through it all - both of their children hugging their mom on her hospital bed. I almost can't write about it even now, the intensity of suffering and faith that gripped our hearts and made us pray for a miracle.

There is a bigger Truth revealed in this book that hit home for me - a Truth I always knew, but hearing from someone who had put it into practice to the end rocked my world!

The Truth is: I am called to get my husband to Heaven.

Yeah, yeah, I know that and I do my best. But here's the other part of that:

My husband is the person God has chosen for me, to help me get to Heaven.

Let's read deeper... this isn't just about praying together. This isn't just about trying to guard the other's heart. This is about the CHALLENGES of marriage, specifically the challenge of being married to WHO you are married to!

(DISCLAIMER I want to clarify that I'm not saying if anyone of us is married to anyone abusive or unfaithful or irresponsible financially, etc, that it's something to be tolerated - I'm speaking today only of the normal, everyday annoyances and personality challenges that we face as married couples once the honeymoon is over!)

I have seen a lot of growth in myself, being married to David. He is more relaxed than I am, in general. His first response to crisis is prayer. My first response to crisis is panic, then prayer. :)

Chris Faddis talks about how we see the good and the bad of one another and how great it is that we can love each other beyond that. My husband's weaknesses, though, have a way of bringing about my weaknesses.

When he forgets to do something I have asked... I get frustrated and angry. Is that just his weakness -- or is it mine?
When he plays with the kids before bed while I am trying to calm them down for sleep and put the kibosh on all the fun..... is that his weakness -- or mine?
When he is running late in the morning because he took an extra long prayer time and I am mad that I put everyone's shoes on and he still isn't in the car -- is that his weakness or mine?
When he wants to be affectionate and gets his feelings hurt because I reject the affection in my own frustration that he doesn't understand I do NOT want anyone else to touch me that day... is that his weakness -- or mine?

Sometimes I think... AH! IF ONLY HE WOULD CHANGE this or that! Or Why, WHY, can't he see things MY way?!?!

Granted, there are legitimate things that he needs to work on. But more often than not... his weaknesses... the weaknesses I can so easily find in him (and overlook in myself), simultaneously bring up my own weaknesses... my weakness towards....

Impatience.... Self-centeredness... Frustration... Lack of Compassion... Lack of Humility... Lack of Generosity

These virtues are MUCH easier for me to practice outside of marriage, but oh-so-difficult to put into place in marriage... why? Because, I think we take advantage of the fact that we have seen one another at our worst, and are still loved. We assume the love and let ourselves get away with not really deserving it- nor even attempting to earn it.

So my spouse will get me to Heaven, not just by guarding my heart and praying with and for me.
He will get me to Heaven not just by being a loving father or a dedicated, faithful husband.
He will get me to Heaven just by being who he is  - who God created him to be, for me.

And as I pick up his laundry in the middle of the bedroom floor once again....

I will be a saint.

:)