moved to tears

A lot of things move me to tears, let’s be honest. And if you know me, you already know that, so it’s not like its news to you. If you didn’t know that, because I may be a bubbly and smiley kind of person, well, the “cat” is out of the bag: I have a loving and tender heart that leaks out of my eyes quite often.

I just finished a book called, “LOVE DOES” given to me by one of my summer interns from the Wellspring Living Redeemed Assessment Center. It was a generous gift, and a good book (though when I first heard of it, I super-struggled with the name of it). My favorite parts of this book were not the actual stories (though, I gotta say I absolutely laughed out loud and shed a tear more than once throughout). My favorite sections of this book include insight from the front and back covers, one in the prologue and one in the epilogue.

In writing the foreward, Donald Miller, writes of Bob Goff in these ways:

            “Bob Goff loves people with a force that is natural, and by natural, I mean like nature….He loves effortlessly….I think Bob Goff knows God, and I think God’s love flows through him.”

            “I don’t know how to explain Bob’s love except to say it is utterly and delightfully devastating.”

In the acknowledgements in the back of the book, Bob Goff writes of Donald Miller, “You added yourself to my life.”

Even as I write this, I have a few tears strolling down my cheeks.

Not because I know Bob Goff or feel like I need to. Not because Donald Miller wrote those words. Or even that Bob Goff makes a compelling case for a life of “whimsy, engagement, and a faith that moves.”

But because the love of God between these two men moves me.

They see each other, know each other, and love each other.

Ohmylanta, there is such a WE in how they publicly write of each other. But that WE (team, in “it” together, relationship) includes the powerful “ME” between them where each man is to be free to be whom they are, where they are, and profoundly as they are because of who God made them to be. There isn’t a “they”…

Jesus loved like that, didn’t he?

He saw people.

He looked right into their eyes and saw people. He saw their personhood, not their action. He saw their aches, not their striving. He saw their jaded stories, and inspired them forward. He saw blind men, sick men, & rejected women (the list goes on). He saw the woman at the well, and ambushed her with grace.

Oh that I would love like that: See their true face, not the mask.

As I begin my public journey (cause, Ya’ll, this didn’t start with me and God has been writing of it for awhile) with Grace Upon Grace, I am so aware of people, of relationship, and the blessing it is to be seen by a great cloud of witnesses (His Church)…while also knowing and trusting that our lives are for an audience of One.

I am aware of the times where I haven’t loved fully, engaged really, nor did I take the time to see someone…there was anxiety, pride, jealousy, insecurity, fear, control, striving, co-dependency, or other “ICK! of the like” all up in my way.

But, sin is just sin, and I am learning to agree with God: to see people and receive when He sees me.

People matter.

Not for what they do, but for who they are and whose they are.

I am inspired today to engage with the Lord as his Follower; to receive more of his extravagant and playful Love, so I might leak of His love.

John 13:34-35

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”