Corrie describes what she says is the only romantic love she ever experienced--she met her brother's friend Karel at the college they attended and the two had an instant connection. Years later, they lived temporarily in the same town, and grew to have a very close friendship, which blossomed into a courtship where they would discuss marriage and their future. Her brother warned her that Karel would have to marry someone more wealthy because this is what his parents wished for him to do, but Karel and Corrie kept in touch with each other through many letters. Corrie noticed that Karel's letters were coming less frequent but continued to write him, still caring deeply about him.
A few months later, Karel arrived at Corrie's home--with his fiance! Corrie tried to manage the entire visit keeping busy and the appearance of normalcy, but knew her family could tell she was deeply hurt. After Karel left she went straight to her room. She heard her father's footsteps and hoped that he wouldn't go on some cliche speech about how there would be someone else soon enough--because she knew for some reason that there truly wouldn't. Instead, these are his words to Corrie.
"Corrie,' he began instead, 'do you know what hurts so very much? It's love. Love is the strongest force in the world, and when it is blocked that means pain.
There are two things we can do when this happens. We can kill the love so that it stops hurting. But then of course part of us dies, too. Or, Corrie, we can ask God to open up another route for that love to travel.
God loves Karel--even more than you do--and if you ask Him, He will give you His love for this man, a love nothing can prevent, nothing destroy. Whenever we cannot love in the old, human way, Corrie, God can give us the perfect way.'
I did not know, as I listened to Father's footsteps winding back down the stairs, that he had given me more than the key to this hard moment. I did not know that he had put into my hands the secret that would open far darker rooms than this--places where there was not, on a human level, anything to love at all.
I was still in kindergarten in these matters of love. My task just then was to give up my feeling for Karel without giving up the joy and wonder that had grown with it. And so, that very, hour, lying there on my bed, I whispered the enormous prayer:
'Lord, I give to You the way I feel about Karel, my thoughts about our future--oh, You know! Everything! Give me Your way of seeing Karel instead. Help me to love him that way. That much.'"
----
"Love is patient, Love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails."
-1 Corinthians 13:4-8a
All too often this gets associated with a romantic context, when in reality it can be applied to so much more.
---
"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy'. But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. -Matthew 5:43-45a
---
go back to the characteristics of love described in 1 Corinthians.
and apply that in the context of the girl that just cussed you out at work
or in a concentration camp to Nazi soldiers.
----
When I think about the ways I do not love even those who are 'easy' to love-- my friends, my family, my coworkers, the teens I mentor--I know that if Corrie was in the kindergarten stage of love, I am most definitely a pre-schooler. Much less those who rejected, alone, in other nations, different, mean, and guarded. Even more less imagining loving those who tortured me, imprisoned me, and killed my family.
I must also remember the ways I cannot be loved without the love of the Lord. For there is nothing to love that is of my flesh. And we know that God showed his love among us through Jesus (John 4:9...just read 7-21)...so that I could live..and love...through Him.
I cannot truly love on my own--only through the Lord.
My prayer is that my old, human, imperfect "love" (i put this in quotes, because it really doesn't deserve the same word. . .it's selfish, and full of sin) would continually taken away and replaced by that perfect love that only He can provide.
---
So Lord, like Corrie, I want to give You the way I feel about my family, friends, neighbors, the homeless, the mean-hearted, the lost, broken, rejected and abused. Give me Your way of seeing them instead. Help me to love them that way. That much."
-------
And bee tea dubs...."Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heard and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." -Matthew 22:37-40
"And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God." -Philippians 1:9-11
No comments:
Post a Comment