Fruit Inspection

I almost called this Love Well Wednesday! I have been taking a class on Wednesday nights called Loving Well (Beth Moore) and I’m getting my Loving and my Living all mixed up!

This study came at the perfect time. Of course, God’s timing always is. Have I mentioned that before? It just soooo IS! Anyways…. there has been a lot going on with my Grandma here lately and I hesitate to write about it only because, OMG, there is sooooo much HISTORY. (Sorry Amy!)

Here is what the description says on the back of the Loving Well journal: “Some people are a joy to love, some are difficult to love, and we all have to deal with some people who are humanly impossible to love. In all those relationships one truth endures: We will never be able to love others well until we have been loved well. And only God can ultimately give us the complete love we so desperately need.”

In one week I have already gained a plethora of knowledge! (Beth Moore is the only person who has ever given me enough knowledge to use the word plethora!) The follow up questions I’ve been answering for the past 6 days have been thought provoking and insightful. I had thoughts and questions and ideas floating around in my head each night after completing my journal entry for that day.

Until last night.

The week in review questions were deep. Too deep for 11:00 at night. I put it back on the nightstand and decided it would have to wait until I was well rested and sitting beside a black, steaming, caffeinated beverage. So I tackled them this morning and I wish I could describe the feeling as I realized God was speaking to me, helping me through each question, all the way to the prayer at the bottom of the page.

He is so awesome!

So what did I learn this week? God wrapped it up for me like this: “Jodi, the depth that you love others is directly related to the amount of love you have accepted from me. You cannot give anybody else something that you never had.”

I thought of how hard it is for me to love my family. How it is just a choice with no real emotion attached to it. I do it, and thanks to Jeremy I am learning to do it better each day. But it doesn’t come naturally, and I wish that it did.

I thought of my Mom and how she has struggled her whole life trying to get love and acceptance out of her own Mother. How she, to this very day, will try to show my Grandma affection, and give her time and talents to her, only to be slapped in the face with the reality that Gram couldn’t care less. Yet she tries and is genuinely surprised and hurt that somebody could treat another person so badly.

And y’all, I praised God about the fact that my Mom beat the odds! How easily she could have been just like her own Mom. But she made a conscious effort to love her family the best way she knew how. Did she do it perfectly? No. Is it sometimes awkward to hug and say I love you? Yes. But she LOVED us and did things every day to let us know it. There was no doubting it. Not even for a second. (Well, maybe the second I turned into a teenager there was a little doubt…but you know…)

Then my thoughts turned to my Grandma. None of us can figure out the circumstances in her life that have led her to be so controlling and manipulative. This is a woman who has spent her entire life, 89 YEARS, in church hearing about Christ and His love for us. Still, her heart is bitter cold and her love is most conditional.

My Mom and I are determined to break this curse. I have often wondered how? But this week I found out. All I have to do is learn to fully accept God’s love. To understand that He cherishes me and give Him complete access to my heart. To pray that I will experience His love today. Only then can I pass the pure, self-less love on to my family.

1 John 4:17 “In this way, love is made complete in us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him”.