Live Life Loved

I did not say anything in my last postings about our move….and I am not sure why. Perhaps it was because it has all been quite overwhelming and for some strange reason, not “talking” about it makes it not seem real.

These past few months have been challenging, encouraging, exciting, reflective, fearful, busy, and exhausting. We were so encouraged as our church sent us off with words of exhortation and reflection and love. I weep as I reflect on our last Sunday as the people shared with us how God had used us, and, for the very first time in 15 years…I realized how loved we really were. How sad to have to wait until we leave to grasp the truth of the love the people had for us.

Oh ladies, how often I struggle with not knowing if I am loved. I long for people to love me. To accept me. BUT how wrong it is for me to long for the love of people….to get my fulfillment and joy from their love. I MUST live my life knowing that my Father in heaven loves me so fully and unconditionally….Oh, Lord, I want to know how loved I am by You….I don’t want to wait until I leave this earth and see Your accepting eyes and fall at Your feet before I grasp this Truth.

My sweet “70-something” friend wrote to me saying she was praying for me to “live life loved”. When I first read it, I thought she was talking about living life loved by people….WRONG! I am to live life loved by HIM.

You, my friend, are precious. You are loved! Isaiah 43:4 says, “Others died that you might live. I traded their lives for yours because you are precious to me. You are honored, and I love you.”

Let me warn you as well....In the words of Denver Moore in Same Kind of Different as Me, “what is precious to God becomes important to satan.” (I would HIGHLY recommend this book!!! It is life-changing).

Allow yourselves to be loved….by God and by the people in your church.

Oh, Father, I thank you for the amazing, perfect love You have for us. I ask that You would speak Your love to this precious woman reading this and that she would KNOW how loved she is by You! I stand against the enemy who would want her to ignore that love or reject that love or not believe in that love. In Jesus’ name, amen.