We Leave with Nothing but Love

It has been a strange, long road without coffee for these two weeks. I think it has been a lapse of habit I won’t remember well, simply because so many other strange events have taken place. I am very much looking forward to my next strong cup.

Tomorrow, after nine days without talking to my boyfriend, and 14 days without heavy caffeine, I will wake up early to continue working out a lot of struggles that have come up in my 3-month relationship. May I know love more than ever before, and show it as much as possible in a Skype conversation.

This week, I have been to San Diego to see friends and family for a crazy day and a half, I have worked many hours and slept many hours, in order to try to shake off this sickness that has haunted me for over 3 weeks now. I have spent a day with a very sick, very on-fire Christian lady. I have prepared for new missions teams to embark this winter. I have encountered much awkwardness, and simultaneous improvement with my coworkers and supervisors. I have rescued a dog. I have intruded in the home of the lost dog, since no one was answering the phone or the door, and the door was unlocked. I have been shopping and driving for hours for a staff retreat. I have had a staff retreat, had some heart-to-hearts with coworkers, and had an escort to scare off the loonies on Skid row. I have been yelled at and cussed out for strolling along Skid row. I found out my sister is having a baby girl in February, her first daughter, and my second niece. I have walked out of  a mission on Skid row and watched a couple of African American drag queens having a shallow conversation as they walk down San Pedro Street. I have showed up for a dinner a whole day early. And I have determined that my week was full of plenty of things besides homework, so it is now time to sit and enjoy my education before I sleep and have more dialog tomorrow. Hopefully it will be just a good, honest conversation.

So obviously there are several ways to describe love. What of it? There are really only a few people that we will always love, that will actually always be in our hearts. Why care much about loving buddies, and what does it really mean to connect God’s love with the love we have for our friends?

Jesus said once that His disciples would be known by the love that they show. He said that the two greatest things to understand would be to love God first, and then to love others more than we love ourselves. That is the economy of God’s law for our era. No matter if God seems distant and ambiguous in this culture. Love is something to pursue. Right?

He then said that there is no greater love than his who would lay down his life for his friend. Sacrifice. How much vulnerability does this kind of love require? Do you have to be transparent about your love for God if you were to love others? And how hard is it to start being more vulnerable with people enough to admit mistakes, and to pray with them?

Coming from the mind of a lifelong, committed Christian, this is easy for me to spill out. By God’s grace, I have convictions about what love should look like as it progresses in a positive way for any connection between people or groups. But for someone who has much more intense experience with darkness and grossness and doubt, how does that conviction begin? What does vulnerability look like when it first begins to take place? What is my role in this?