grace.

God has been hurt by me.

I've caused God pain.

I've caused God sadness.

I've caused Him grief.

Who am I to feel as though I have the right to mistreat God?

The Creator of infinity.

The Lover of all.

The only One who won't ever hurt me.

Yet I've hurt Him.

And I've been selfish enough to think that I have a higher agenda than what He has for me.

Awesome. Why do I do this?

I defame His name. His existence. His creation. His world.

It's all so sacred. It's His Love. His bridegroom. The one thing He loves more than anything else.

And I treat it as insignificant. Unimportant. Irrelevant. Worth nothing.

He experiences human emotion. And I've caused Him to experience some of those emotions that no human wants to have to endure.

If no human would want to endure them, surely we wouldn't wish them on a God who has never been anything but good.

But we do.

Not only do we wish them upon the One benevolent God, we inflict them upon Him.

I am the cause of God's grief.

And He is the cause of my joy.

There's nothing that's fair about that.

But I suppose that's a prime example of the character of God.

While I was choosing to hurt Him, God chose to be humiliated and brutally murdered for me. [Romans 5:8]

It's not fair.

But that's grace.

It's overwhelming sometimes.

"God didn't come to make bad people good. He came to make dead people alive."

-Aaron Bryant

a more different blog on love.

Apparently my brain is getting stuck on topics lately. I've blogged about water twice in the past month-ish (although I think I might've only published one of them? I don't remember), and now I'm writing about love for the second time.

But it's such a deep topic. It's one of those that could never be overanalyzed. Love is so multi-faceted, and can signify so many different things.

It's interesting to me that there's only one word in the English language for love.

[my inner word nerd is coming out...]

There are four words for love in the Greek language:

agape (αγάπη) is most commonly used in modern day Greek, and refers to real love. You know, like the kind of love where you would do absolutely anything for the person.

eros (έρως) is a sensual passionate love. i.e., getting to know someone in the "Biblical sense".

philia (φιλία) is friend love. It can refer to loyalty among friends, comfortable familiarity with family, etc.

storge (στοργή) is acceptance. Sometimes it has the connotation of a begrudging acceptance, but it's almost always used in reference to an unearned affection.

My point of focus the past couple days has been agape love. It totally blows my mind. It's quite possibly the most beautiful and unselfish thing I've ever witnessed.

There's an older couple at Madison Park (my church in Anderson) who have been married for a lot of years. Over the past few years, the wife has become more and more affected by dementia.

I first met them a couple years ago when I started to become more involved in the worship arts ministry at Madison Park. At that point, the wife was in the beginning stages of Alzheimer's. She would say the same things to me every Sunday (most Sundays she reminded me that she plays violin and would then give me a high five because I "deserved it"), but was otherwise self-sufficient.

By the time I left the church the following summer, she had become somewhat socially inappropriate, and was no longer mentally capable of driving, but was still able to play violin in the orchestra and be an active member of the church choir.

I hadn't seen or thought about her since I stopped attending Madison Park eight months ago, but while I was in Anderson this past month, I couldn't help but notice her in the church choir there.

You see, she kind of stuck out. Not only was she the only female standing smack dab in the middle of the men's section, but she also wasn't really singing. She'd stare off into space for a few minutes, then sing a few words that weren't necessarily a part of the current song, and then she'd look around some more.

It was honestly kind of sad to watch, but at the same time, it was really a neat thing to see. Her incompetence wasn't the neat part; it was the way her husband was there to support her. She probably shouldn't have been in public, but her husband was right there with her watching her every move and making sure she didn't harm or embarrass herself (or anyone else).

Her husband has literally devoted his entire existence to enabling his wife to live the life she wants to. She was standing in the men's section so he could keep a closer eye on her. He stands in her shadow and watches from a distance. If she does anything inappropriate (which is frequent), he gently guides her away from the situation.

She's obviously a very different person now than who she was when they got married.

But he wasn't kidding when he told her,

"For better or for worse.

In sickness or in health.

Until death do us part."

I was looking through the four Greek loves to try to identify which of these was most closely linked to the love I saw this man show his wife, and I couldn't decide on just one. His love for his wife is so deep that it encompasses all four of these loves. Sure, there's probably not much eros in their relationship at this point, but he displays the other three loves in an unmistakeable way.

The interaction between this couple is the closest thing to God's love that I can ever recall seeing. Sure, a lot of people are of the opinion that God is a harsh and critical deity. But all I know for certain is what I've experienced, and what I've experienced is that God is a god of unconditional, unmerited, irrational love.

Regardless of what I do or how far away I try to run, God's never stopped loving me. He's never stopped providing for me. I don't understand it. But I can't deny its truth.

Love always protects,

always trusts,

always hopes,

always perseveres.

-1 Corinthians 13:7

lately.

I've done a lot of driving lately.

{Seriously. Close to 1500 miles in the past 11 days.}

I've started learning Russian lately.

{So far I know the alphabet and numbers 1-10.}

I've tried to start reading again lately.

{I've read maybe 100 pages within the last year. And that's probably being generous.}

I've been learning to love lately.

{It's harder than it looks. It's also more rewarding than I could've imagined.}

I've been worrying about money lately.

{I guess that makes me normal.}

I've gotten really into fresh fruit lately.

{It just tastes so good.}

I've been skyping a lot lately.

{It helps me to miss my faraway friends less.}

I've been learning lately.

Learning about myself.

Learning about others.

Learning about God.

Learning about peace.

Learning about contentment.

It's funny how you can have all the degrees in the world, but there's always going to be more to learn.

I guess that's why we have God.

Friends.

Experiences.

Pain.

They shape us into who we are. They teach us things we couldn't learn any other way.

I was listening to the radio today as I was driving. The question was posed, "How can I know God loves me?"

Sunday School answer?

Jesus loves me this I know,

For the Bible tells me so.

(Or I guess there's always Romans 5:8... "God demonstrates His love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.")

Real answer?

I'm not sure.

The question is so simple and so fundamental that we tend to gloss over it.

It's one of those things that I've always accepted as truth without questioning it or giving it much thought.

I got stuck on this question.

I thought about it for a while, discovered I didn't have any conclusions, and then promptly dismissed it.

And then I started reading some old journal entries of mine.

I came across one where I'd written, "Bondye konnen tout bagay. Bondye komprann tout bagay."

God knows everything. God understands everything.

Such a simple couple of sentences. But such a comforting concept.

I realized that was my answer.

How can we know God loves us? He knows everything and understands everything.

He has it all under His control. He knows what's happening, even when we don't. (Especially when we don't.)

He knows everything. He understands everything.

Everything.

My finite mind can't even understand the concept of everything.

But who cares? God knows it. He gets it.

Of course He does; He made it.

And He loves His creation.

"But what is man that You are mindful of him?"

--Psalm 8:4a

agua. l'eau. wasser.

Over the past couple months, I've found that one of the most concrete ways I can try to understand God is in water.

(Don't you worry, I'll explain.)

It's always been difficult for me to comprehend how God can be so many things, so many characteristics, all at once. A couple weeks back, I was walking around Radnor Lake in silence with a friend when I had the epiphany that water, like God, displays multiple characteristics at once.

Think about it:

in the context of a waterfall, water is powerful. majestic. dangerous. terrifying.

at the base of that waterfall, the water is still. calm. serene. refreshing.

the same waterfall creates mist, which is almost unnoticeable, but is certainly there if you choose to be aware of its presence.

water is what we drink to sustain our physical bodies. those bodies are composed of 60% water.

it can freeze into a solid. ice in itself can do many things. it can sink the titanic. it can bring relief to an injury. it can enable humans to walk on the surface of a pond.

What a fickle friend, that H2O.

Over the past several days, the town where I live has experienced the worst flooding in its history. Water has become the enemy.

it's killed 30 people.

it's ruined hundreds, if not thousands, of people's cars.

it's left a lot of people without electricity.

it's filled the grand ole opry.

it's picked up houses and carried them away.

photo credit: Lonnie Fowler

I was personally unaffected. Well, for the most part. We lost power for a day, and our water heater is out of commission, but otherwise my house and roommates have come away from the flooding unscathed.

But the water is still everywhere.

It isn't forcing itself on me.

It's stayed out of my house.

But it's very present.

How God-like is that?!

He's all over the place.

Our very existence screams His name.

Yet He allows us to ignore it if we choose to.

If we want, we can deny His presence.

We can choose to drive on the roads that aren't flooded.

But that doesn't change the fact that He's there.

photo credit: Lonnie Fowler

Open up the sky; rain down Your love.

I don't care if I never get enough.

I just want to be caught in that flood

So open up the sky.

love... or something like it.

For whatever reason, I've been obsessed with the word love today.

Not the romanticized, chick flick type of love our society places so much emphasis on.

No, I've been more focused on real love. The kind of love that I should be showing to everyone. Unconditionally.

Unbiasedly.

Uninhibitedly.

I went to my iTunes, and searched "love".

94 songs came up.

Everything from "Love Shack" by The B-52's to David Crowder's "Amazing Love."

It's interesting how humans have perverted the idea of love.

"I love pizza" is said as flippantly as one might say their birthdate or shoe size.

This human meaning of love is something that can be wonderful, yet simultaneously agonizing.

Then I went to BibleGateway.

I searched "love".

There were 697 results.

As I read through the first few hundred verses, it dawned on me that love is a choice.

It's about choosing to genuinely care about other people, regardless of their alleged value in society.

This kind of love is "dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal," in the words of Abraham Lincoln. [Thanks Mr. Hartzell for making me memorize the Gettysburg Address in 10th grade.]

I'm not the Savior.

I can't do anything for anyone, except to show them that their life matters.

All I can do is show love.

That's it. Period.

"The entire law is summed up in a single command: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"

-Galatians 5:14

still.

The past couple weeks have been interesting.

Interesting... could I be more vague? [I guess I could be more vague if I made up a word. The past couple weeks have been lubarious. Yep, now you have even less of a clue what I'm talking about. I'll try this again.]

The past couple weeks have been some of the most emotional ones I've had in quite a while. It's been made up of some of the lowest lows I can ever remember having, but it's been counterbalanced with some incredible highs that have kept it both bearable and quite interesting.

There's that word again. Interesting.

I guess the bottom line is that I don't know how to process everything that's gone on. I've become very emotionally fragile. By the time I deal with myself, I have nothing left to give away. I can't invest into other people like I want to.

I was laying in bed this morning, trying to process everything, when a crystal clear sentence cut through the jumbled mess that was in my head:

Be still and know that I am God.

It wasn't a phrase I'd thought of recently, nor was it anything that's ever held exceptional meaning in my life, but it was precisely what I needed to hear.

I realized I've been trying to take things into my own hands.

(How human of me.)

As soon as this Psalm entered my mind, my entire demeanor changed. I felt myself physically loosen. I stopped analyzing every tiny detail of the past couple weeks. My brain simply stopped.

And I was still.

And I knew.

I knew.

That God is sovereign.

That God has everything under control.

That God is in charge.

That God won't give me anything that I can't handle.

That God allows struggle in order to enable growth.

That God is molding me.

That God has never and will never give up on me.

That God is love.

So I will be still.

And I will bask in the peace that I will never fully comprehend.

"Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth. The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress." --Psalm 46:10-11

trying to understand.

You'd think I'd be somewhat over it by now.

It would make sense for me to have moved on with my life.

But it still haunts me.

I still see the impact on my life of the earthquake in Haiti.

Every day.

It has truly changed the way I live.

It's been a lesson in self-discovery.

I didn't realize how crucial the Haiti aspect of my life was to my overall contentment.

I can't not have that as a constant part of my existence.

This morning, I listened to a speaker who was comparing Haiti's earthquake to 9/11.

I was honestly surprised at how strongly I reacted.

My whole body tensed up.

I was legitimately angry at him.

I shouldn't be angry. I realize that he just doesn't understand.

But I couldn't shake it.

2,819 people died in 9/11. [0.00001% of the US's population at the time.]

230,000 people died in Haiti. [2.8% of Haiti's population.]

The estimated cleanup cost from 9/11 is $600 million.

The projected cleanup cost in Haiti is $1 billion.

1,506,124 tons of debris was removed from the World Trade Center site.

An estimated 60,000,000 tons of debris is yet to be removed in Port-au-Prince.

source: nymag.com

I'm not trying to diminish the calamity of what happened on September 11, 2001.

I realize that the scope of thousands of people's lives was forever changed on that day.

There is no way to rectify or justify the attacks.

But please understand, there's no comparison between the two events.

Port-au-Prince has essentially ceased to exist.

"When arriving at a large tent city downtown, our police escort said, 'There is no more Port-au-Prince.' Heartbroken, she stayed inside the truck." -@troylivesay (January 21, 2010)