Amazing (Love)

I love love songs. I especially love well-lyricized love songs. Sometimes when I listen to these songs (and sing along at the top of my lungs) I find myself longing for that kind of love. I wonder if it really exists, or if it's just something everyone else is looking for too and that's why it's such a popular theme for music and movies and books and TV.

Then about a week ago, I realized something. That love DOES exist, and I am a recipient of it. Today, right now, I am loved that much. The love I'm talking about it even better than the love in these songs. It's a life-changing, life-saving kind of love. The kind of love that makes your heart sing with joy, the kind of love that makes you feel lighter than a feather even though the plenitude of this love is so great that you can't believe you can hold it all in your heart. The love of Jesus.

I feel like I'm opening my eyes for the first time. I've learned that God has this love for me, but I never really understood it and I had a hard time feeling like I was loving God back in the same way. I would think to myself, "I love God, but do I LOVE God?" And I felt guilty because I wasn't sure if I knew how. Turns out, all I needed to do was ask Him, because he not only showed me, he showered me with it! And when He did, I realized something else: loving God is not something I had to learn how to do. It's something that's always been there but was floating around under the surface just waiting to be released. Christ released it for me, and now I understand that part of experiencing the fullness of His love is loving him back with all of my heart. Praise God and His love for us!!

The Love of Christ Is Rich and Free

The love of Christ is rich and free;
Fixed on His own eternally;
Nor earth, nor hell, can it remove;
Long as He lives, His own He’ll love.

His loving heart engaged to be
Their everlasting Surety;
’Twas love that took their cause in hand,
And love maintains it to the end.

Love cannot from its post withdraw;
Nor death, nor hell, nor sin, nor law,
Can turn the Surety’s heart away;
He’ll love His own to endless day.

Love has redeemed His sheep with blood;
And love will bring them safe to God;
Love calls them all from death to life;
And love will finish all their strife.

He loves through every changing scene,
Nor aught from Him can Zion wean;
Not all the wanderings of her heart
Can make His love for her depart.

At death, beyond the grave, He’ll love;
In endless bliss, His own shall prove
The blazing glory of that love
Which never could from them remove.

Independently Happy?

As I settle into my second trimester, my sickness gone, my appetite back and my mood improved,  I am beginning to realize on a deeper level why God desires us to have children within a marriage.  I find myself praying to Jesus, asking Him to be the husband I need right now.  It's very hard and very lonely to be pregnant and alone.  By alone, I don't mean physically alone, as my parents are incredibly supportive and of course I live with them, and my friends have been wonderful and caring and giving, and I have my sister and my niece who are so excited already.  However, it's different when it's your own child.  When I lay in bed at night and feel my little girl moving around inside me, it's a very humbling and awe-filled experience, creating an intense emotional response.  But there's no one next to me, who I can say, "feel this!" to, and know that's its not only creating the same emotions in him but also bringing us closer to each other over this incredible gift that God has given.  In a way I almost feel more separate from my friends and family than ever before because of my pregnancy.  There's so many deep feelings and thoughts going on in my head and they're not the kind of thing you call up a friend and chat about, or bring up at the dinner table with Mom and Dad.  

It's safe to say I still have a lot of guilt that is preventing me from fully enjoying this experience as well, and I'm working on that every day.  I do believe that God has a plan for my daughter and for me, but it's so hard to see that right now when all I can think of is the stupid, selfish decisions I made that resulted in this situation.  I realize that what I'm going through now emotionally is a direct result of my sin and I am responsible for those decisions but I don't always know what is the right thing to do now that I have come back into the fold of God's love and grace and have repented for those things. 

 I know God will continue to provide me with what I need to get through this and I know that he will provide for my child as well.  Praise God, He has already made sure I have what I need and enabled me to make it even when I thought I wouldn't, both financially and emotionally. Please just pray that God will also fill my heart with peace and surety, that He will be my child's true and real Father and that he will be the Husband there next to me when I need Him to be.