It's kind of unbelievable; the time I spent thinking about the fact it was Valentine's Day today (very little) was legitimately entirely taken up with hoping that I would get to see, hang out with, love on and be loved by my life group. And then the boys gave us candy and playdough with little Valentine's cards, some of us ducked out of the main Hub event to have a really powerful prayer time followed by simply hanging out with each other in the dark (Sarah had a migraine), Lisa wrote me an incredible note while praying for my aunt's sister, and to top it all off, at the end of the night Dan made me cry with a text message which simply said "How are you?"
Then I watched Beastly (which I've been tried to identify in photos, finally found, and really enjoyed) and half way through the credits I started sobbing.
Was I lonely? Mourning the fact that I had no significant other to treat me on Valentine's day?
No, actually.
I was bawling because it hit me that I am loved so much better by my life group than by any of the things I have ever imagined or wanted a boyfriend to do to/for me. I mourned, in that I realized for all that I may have had a crush or two these last few years, I have not even come close to understanding the depth of the kind of relationship God actually wants for us. I mourned my superficiality, my unambitious desires, my failure to really take God up on his promises, even just in my own heart. But through the sobbing, my face was split with a maniac grin and I choked on my air as I laughed out my tears, because I want none of it like I want my Fugees. I have never experienced being loved like they love me. I'm not sure I've ever loved like I love them. (I know this all sounds pretty dramatic, but I can't find another way to put it.) The work that the Holy Spirit has been doing, hand-picking each of us to stitch together this hodge podge of people who desperately need each other, to love and to be loved by, shatters my equanimity every time I stop to think about it.
In the fact of love like this, who has the energy, time, or desire to mourn for a bouquet of roses and a fancy dinner date? Sorry, future hubby, God's given you some really big brother-sister shoes to step in to.
What's great is that I know you can fill them or you aren't meant to be. Because God created me (us!) for this kind of loving, to be able to pour out my entire heart into people knowing, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it will be slathered back onto me multiplied by a hundred-fold, even when that wasn't the point to begin with! Because, you know what? That's how HE is. That is who He is.
How the hell did we get so lucky to have a God like this one?
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