Intentional Acts of Love!

Dear Beloved,

Last week I was reminded of the love that a parent has for their child. I was sitting in church admittedly tired and dozing off. I sat in the pew next to my pastor’s wife. I turned over and asked her if she had any gum? She smiled and began to take out several packets of gum. Cool mint, cinnamon, icy fresh… “Take your pick,” she said. I truly was not expecting such a variety. “Why do you have so much gum, and in so many flavors!?!?” She again smiled. “Luz,” (her daughter) “loves gum so I always keep some in my purse and I like to give her choices.” My heart became so full in that moment. Look at a mother’s intentional act of love! Being a mother myself, I knew the amount of heart that she had put into choosing what went into her handbag, specifically for her daughter. Equally, having once been a child, I knew that it would take many years of maturity, and to some degree only as a mother herself, until Luz would be able to understand the magnitude of such an act of love.

There are so many decisions and sacrifices my parents made for me, things I didn’t fully understand or appreciate until I had my own children. I have many conversations with my parents today in which I am expressing to them my deepest regrets and appreciation. “I had no idea...thank you.”

This is parallel to our inability to fully understand the magnitude of our Father’s love for us. Abba Father loves us even more deeply than our parents, or anyone, could ever love us. Even the understanding we have of the death of His son, on the cross, for us, is something we won’t ever fully truly be able to grasp the fullness of until we are united wholefully unto Him.

I confess that sometimes, like an ungrateful teenager who has yet to mature into the fullness of life, I take this love for granted. I complain and gripe. I compare and beg for more. I pout and whine asking why me. To think that His love extends such a deep ness that even in these moments, rather than dismiss our union with Him entirely He extends grace.

Friends this week I challenge you to look past what you see. Continue to ask the Father for eyes of understanding. Understanding to appreciate on a deeper level the heart of a Father’s love. Eyes to see the expressions of love He has and continues to place all around you. Don’t be fooled by foolish ways or immature thinking. You are LOVED by the creator of the Universe. Be anointed and filled with that truth

“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears,[a] we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. 3 All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.”

1 Peter 3:1-3 “What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. In the same way, your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish.” Matthew 18:12-14

“And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. 19 May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God. 20 Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.” Ephesians 3:18-20

Abundantly With Love,

The Anonymous Wife