Loving and Living

I'm just gonna be really real here.  If you haven't noticed yet, the past few weeks have been hard.  I'm usually a joyful and upbeat person and on the outside I mostly have been still... but on the inside I was living a little on the self pity side. 

I really hate pity.  I hate pitying people because I don't want to be pitied.  Thus, I hate it when people pity me.  And when I pity myself, I really hate it.

So, pity has turned to guilt, to frustration, to anger...etc. etc. etc.

Which brings me to here, now, tonight.  As a youth sponsor in our youth group I have the great privilege of being privy to sermons meant for the teenagers.  And as a youth sponsor for 6 yrs now, I would have to say that every Wed. night something speaks directly to me.  And tonight was no different.

For goodness sakes, I'm bad at repeating things I've heard.  But the gist of tonight's message was what will be said about you when you're gone.  Essentially, Am I living the life that God would want me to live?

And all I can think is that these past few weeks I have been so absorbed into myself that I haven't even been loving God. 

So tonight kicks off my mission to love God and in doing that learning to love others, because you can't love God without loving others.  That's the whole of who God is; Love. 

So here is how I loved today: 
After service I bought a candy bar.  My husband asked me for a bite and I gave him... the look.  Then he said "you're supposed to say 'sure honey, I love you".  And my head said "Love!"  So I offered him the whole candy bar, joyfully for real - with a smile on my face.  (thankfully, my extra loving husband only took 1 bite, but I still offered and would not have been upset had he accepted).

I know that that is really small, and really dumb.  But my love meter has been so low...so very low... that I haven't been showing love to anybody.  And that's pathetic. 

John 3:16 (Amplified)
⁶For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that He [even] gave up His only begotten (^[a]unique) Son, so that whoever believes in (trusts in, clings to, relies on) Him shall not perish (come to destruction, be lost) but have eternal (everlasting) life.

Now that's something worth living for, someone who would give up his only son so that we could have life forever with him in heaven.