Begat love……

By Hugh Macleod
Stormhock label designs: gapingvoid.com

"I will answer them before they even call to me. While they are still talking about their needs, I will go ahead and answer their prayers!"
Isaiah 65:24/New Living Translation

How many times has that happened to you? I’m thinking it happens all the time but goes unrecognized much of the time. Think about when your kids were toddlers, for some of you that is now. As parents we would go before, to the side of, or behind our little one to clear the path and make it safe for them to explore their world. I believe that’s how God works in our lives. Just like our little people do not see what we do for them. We as adults do not see the many times nothing happens, when God goes before us, to the side of us or behind us to clear our path and make it safe for us to live in this world. Our lives are the reflection, or should be, of how God loves us.

I’m also thinking the reason we have arms is to reach out to others and give them the love of God through the love He gives us. He uses our arms to feed the hungry and clothe the poor as well as to bind the wounds of the body and brokenness of a heart.

We have ears to listen to one another as God listens to us. He listens through our hurts and our fears. He listens through our frustration and anger. He has an ear for all our nit-picking and complaining.

Our eyes are not just for seeing the needs so we might attend to them – I think they are a place from which God can weep for the sorrows of this world.

And that mouth we have? Not many people walking around without one but not near enough people using them to encourage and exhort, to approve of and accept, to honor and respect.

A pearl to string: It doesn’t matter what kind of love I think on – I can’t seem to write about it without first seeing it through the love of God. The attributes of love are the attributes of God. "No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love has been brought to full expression through us". 1 John 4:12/New Living Translation

It was in the beginning that God begat love,
Lyndi

All God’s Children

For the month of February I wanted to focus on love. First, I focused on the greatest love of all – God’s love for us. Second, I turn to love in marriage but it became more about how to be love and dying to self. With that in mind I’m expecting an interesting journey as I set out to think on the love we have for our children. Oh it’s big isn’t it? The love we have for our children. It really doesn’t matter whether you are gazing upon a small child, a teen or a grown adult your parent heart just swells with love pride – it’s really indescribable.

I’m reminded of a story some years ago, on a hot summer day in Florida, a little boy decided to go for a swim in the old swimming hole behind his house. In a hurry to dive into the cool water, he ran out the back door, leaving behind shoes, socks and shirt as he went. He flew into the water, not realizing that as he swam toward the middle of the lake, an alligator was swimming toward the shore.

His mother, in the house and looking out the window, saw the two as they got closer and closer together. In utter fear, she ran toward the water, yelling to her son as loudly as she could. Hearing her voice, the little boy became alarmed and made a U-turn to swim to his mother. It was too late. Just as he reached her, the alligator reached him. From the dock, the mother grabbed her little boy by the arms just as the alligator snatched his legs. That began an incredible tug-of-war between the two. The alligator was much stronger than the mother, but the mother was much too passionate to let go.

A farmer happened to drive by, heard her screams, raced from his truck, took aim and shot the alligator. Remarkably, after weeks and weeks in the hospital, the little boy survived. His legs were extremely scarred by the vicious attack of the animal. And, on his arms, were deep scratches where his mother's fingernails dug into his flesh in her effort to hang on to the son she loved.

The newspaper reporter who interviewed the boy after the trauma asked if he would show him his scars. The boy lifted his pant legs. And then, with obvious pride, he said to the reporter, "But look at my arms. I have great scars on my arms, too. I have them because my Mom wouldn't let go." What a beautiful picture pops up in my mind of the determination of a Mother’s love. www.TruthorFiction.com cannot authenticate this story but in the Bible the truth is found. Romans 8:38 tells us that ‘nothing can separate us from the love of God’

A pearl to string: We all have scars, not from an alligator perhaps, but from pain that stomped through our past. Some of those scars are deep and gnarly and some have very long stems of regret. Some of the wounds that lace our past, dear hearts, are because God refused to let go. When you couldn’t hold on to God – He was holding on to you. We are all His children. God wants to do more than love us. John 3:16 tells us He sent His Son to die for our sins so that whosoever believes will not perish but spend all eternity with the Father.

We keep our children in our hearts yet God has a bigger plan for His children.

Believing in everlasting Son shine,
Lyndi

IN MEMORY

Of Charles Aubrey Amado
June 9, 1981-February 10,2008



Three friends died in Grapevine Texas
Cory Pratt - Aubrey Amado - Justin Cartwright

Life is kind of like the ocean,
You can see how it starts, but not the way it ends.

We little knew that morning
God was going to call your name,
In Life we loved you dearly
In death we do the same.
It broke our hearts to lose you
You did not go alone,
For part of us went with you
The day God called you home.
You left us beautiful memories
Your love is still our guide,
And although we cannot see you
You are always at our side.
Our family chain is broken
And nothing seems the same,
But as God calls us one by one
The chain will link again.

Blessings and grace to the Moms & Dads, family and friends
especially Kristy Amado
http://www.yourcachevalley.com/members/myfriesians

You Gotta Have Heart

Love is such an odd thing. We all want it and we all want to give it. Somehow the confusion begins right at that juncture. Our common human characteristic is our need to count in someone else’s life. At least one other person needs us, we tell ourselves, when we feel least able to accept life’s demands. How alike we all are. The paradox is that our own need for love is lessened when we bestow it on others. Choosing to offer love, rather than look for it, will influence every experience we have. Give it away and it returns. So we eventually learn that love isn’t about what “I” can get. True love is neither physical, nor romantic. True love is an acceptance of all that is, has been, will be, and will not be. Author Unknown

Most people want to find true love, a mate to share their life with – ah….. Then comes marriage! Now there’s a blast from 45 years of experience. In the early going the 'my way' thing turns into the battle of the egotists and it's an I for an I. Through the struggles and the joys, the hurts and the healings, and the tug a wars and the victories Coach Wonderful and I know marriage brings you closer to the Lord. But the key to a long love life is dying to yourself – actually it is the key to much of what we do here on earth. Dying to yourself is like a God directed prescribed burn. It clears out the underbrush of self and improves the hungering and thirsting of your soul while strengthening temptation deliverance and seriously reducing the noxious weeds of daily life. It never gets easier to die to yourself and there always seems to be another deeper layer of pride with which one has to deal. But it is the most direct path to love.

A pearl to string: Growing and learning to love God seems to be the most beautiful way to love others from my 65 years of life perspective. Benjamin Franklin (another old dude) said, “Loving others promises me the love I desire. But I can’t expect it if I don’t give it first.”

My friend, your love has made me happy and has greatly encouraged me.
It has also cheered the hearts of God’s people.
Philemon 1:7/CEV

You gotta have heart to love others and you gotta have love to have heart.
You gotta have God to have love because God is love.

Getting me out of the way and
Loving in Son shine – Happy Valentine’s Day,
Lyndi

The Greatest Love of All

It’s February – the Love Month and I think I’d like to focus on love all month long.

There are those among us that would say, “Forget love; I’d rather fall in chocolate”. Believe it or not the Bible has a warning for that way of thinking: When you're given a box of candy, don't gulp it all down; eat too much chocolate and you'll make yourself sick ~ Proverbs 25:16/MSG. I know I could hunt down some deep wisdom in that Scripture and I may come back to it but for now I’m looking for the Greatest Love of All.

Henry Ward Beecher said, "I never knew how to worship until I knew how to love”.

So, my question would be, how does anyone know how to love until they begin to know God? Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 1 John 4:7

The Greek language had three words for love. First there was "Eros," from which we get "erotic." This was, of course a purely selfish love. Then there was "Phileo" (Philadelphia), or "brotherly love" This is the love of one family member for another. But the Bible reveals a deeper love – the depth and breadth of God’s love. "Agape" is a giving love, entirely unselfish. Agape describe the love God has for us. As the song; "The Love of God" says:

Were with ink the oceans filled
And were the skies of parchment made
And every blade of grass a quill
And every man a scribe by trade
To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry
Nor could the scroll contain the whole
Though stretched from sky to sky.

We are of great value both because of our creation and also because of the price paid for our redemption. There is an old story which illustrates this aptly.

A Young boy made a beautiful toy sailboat and took it to a lake to sail, but a gust of wind blew the boat out into the lake. The boat was lost. Several weeks later, the boy saw his sailboat in the window of a toy store. When he asked for his boat, the store owner said, "I own the sailboat now. If you want it you will have to buy it back." The boy sold all he had to buy back his boat. After paying the store owner, the boy took his boat to his heart and said, "Little boat, you are twice mine, I made you, and now I bought you."

A pearl to string: Like that little boat, we are twice the Lord's - He made us, and Christ bought us back by paying the price for our sin with his own blood.

I’m going with Samuel Rutherford’s thoughts on God: “Since He hath looked upon me my heart is not my own. He hath run away to heaven with it”.

Captured by His love,
Lyndi