Perfect Love

 

 "Can we snuggle, Mom?" 

By far, it's my most favorite request. My boys are turning nine shortly, and the question still melts me. I know they will soon outgrow the comfort of their momma's lap and the request for snuggles will end - so I choose to absorb every moment while I can.

Deep within all of us is this same sense of wanting to belong, wanting to be "held". The desire to love and to be loved is hardwired into our hearts from our first cries, and we cling to it until our final breath. Love is our home base, our safest place. The struggle is: as imperfect humans, we are limited; we cannot give out complete, perfect love. As a mom of twenty-one years, acknowledging this particular truth has been painful for me, on a level I can't quite express. I love these five little (and now big) humans SO much. I would lay down my life for them without hesitation. However, in the daily struggle, it's often difficult to display that love perfectly. I have my own baggage. My own selfishness. My pride, fears and damage hinder me from giving out that perfect, selfless love. In the frustrating moments of parenting, I've often declared to my husband (of our children), "I love them, I just don't like them right now!" Truth is, the problem isn't necessarily only with them - it is with me, my imperfect love, and with my standards of love. My standards don't always align with God's example. I can place demands, expectations and requirements around my love.

But.

There's beauty within my brokenness. Within my failure is found salvation...redemption. My shortcomings allow me to point them to the One who can love them more perfectly than I. The One whose perfect love is fully balanced and contains an ample supply. As believers, we tend to throw words around from the Christian culture quite loosely. Words like "salvation", "redemption", "grace" and "mercy" seemed to be simple condiments to my spiritual nourishment while growing up. As an adult, the meanings to those words are now my daily, life-giving bread and butter. I am utterly dependent on them. I am nothing without them, in fact. Salvation is the basic foundation to the Christian life, and also the perfect definition of love. Salvation is believing that Jesus is who He says He is, and that his death served as an offering for the forgiveness of my wrong-doings against God. Salvation allowed my soul to be spared a physical and spiritual death. By definition, salvation is: preservation or deliverance from harm, ruin or loss. Life here on earth and the relationships thereof are a mixed bag of joy and love, as well as harm, ruin and loss. It is impossible for us to fully grasp this concept of true, selfless, perfect love - therefore, pain and sadness are inevitable. Which sounds hopelessly morbid...if it weren't for Christ. Salvation fulfills the core need of every human: to be loved and find belonging. To be loved by God: It cannot be earned, and it has no limits or prerequisites. It's simply a gift to be accepted.  His love is not dependent on our feelings, moods or circumstances. It doesn't insist on obedience, favored behavior or reciprocation in order to continue to pour out. It simply is always there and available - an everlasting, ever-abundant supply of it. 

This blows my mind. 

We can be so complacent of what we have. We've forgotten our childlike faith; forgotten what it's like to snuggle up at the feet of Christ and allow ourselves to simply be loved. The enemy whispers, "You aren't enough. You're unlovely. Damaged. Unworthy." And like Adam and Eve, we flee His presence, conflicted by the nakedness of our own sin. 

And it's true.  
I'm not enough. 
I am unlovely.
Damaged, and unworthy. 

 But He still loves me anyway. 

In fact, because of Christ's life now flowing through me: His love has made me enough. Because of his love, he sees me as lovely. He knows my damage and still calls me worthy. It's not about me and what I do, it's about Him and what He's done. How can I not be completely undone and wrecked by that? How can I not submit my will to His love? And so I do. As I grow to understand and accept more of his perfect love, I'm able, though him, to live out more and more of this kind of love.

Lord, help me see and love others more like you do...