Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

love

When love shows up and won’t let go

“What’s your address? Don’t ask any questions! I’m working on something.”

A few days into my forced bedrest because of muscle spasms in my back, a friend sent me this message on Facebook. Little did I know at the time that the “something” she was working on was meals for my family while I’m incapacitated as well as arranging for someone to do our laundry. (I declined the latter. Judge me, if you will, but I’m particular about who sees and touches my dirty clothes.)

Two of the meals (and to clarify, one of the “meals” was three meals!) were made and delivered by people I’ve never met, and the friend who arranged this act of love drove herself almost an hour from her house to mine. (I should also mention that this friend and I have only seen each other in person one time before this, at a weekend retreat years ago. But we’re all over the Facebook universe.)

Who does that?

I asked my husband this more than once.

This was not the only way we were loved that week.

Who goes out, on purpose, on the coldest day of winter to bring food to a family?

Who spends their day off making a meal for others?

Who offers to bring soup when they’ve got a houseful of kids to care for, too?

Who shows up on less than an hour’s notice to care for two rowdy kids and help an overwhelmed husband walk his wife to the car while she cries out in agony on the way to the chiropractor?

****

wp-1454074528032.jpg

“Do you have difficulty receiving good things?”

This question from my therapist haunts me. It’s been months since she asked it, and I’m still mulling the answer.

It’s complicated.

I’ve long believed I only deserve something if I’ve earned it, and I’ve forever rationalized my family’s love with, “Well, they’re just doing that because they have to.”

Can you imagine living like this? Never believing anyone could love you whether you did anything or not?

I can’t identify the source of this erroneous thinking. All I know is I’ve been feeling this way about God, too. Somewhere along the way, I stopped believing He is good and that He loves me.

****

And then, when I was utterly helpless, love showed up.

When my therapist walked me to my car because I could hardly stand without pain.

When my husband left work early two days in a row to help me.

When my kids spent their four-day weekend cooped up in the house with me, bringing me food and learning to do laundry.

When my husband would come home from work, exhausted, and turn up the tunes to wash dishes with the kids.

When the snow fell for 24 hours straight and he shoveled the driveway and took the kids out to build a fort.

When the meals poured in from unexpected sources.

All of these actions screamed a message I couldn’t ignore:

You are loved.

You are loved.

You are loved.

I don’t have to earn it. The best kind of love isn’t earned. It is given over and over again.

I am loved. Even when I am stuck in bed and my house is a mess and I’ve binge-watched Gilmore Girls for weeks.

I am loved. Period. End of story.

And so are you.

What keeps you from believing it?

5 on Friday: Good stuff from bloggers you need to be reading

Sometimes it’s hard to wade through all the words on the Web and find the treasures among the trash.

Let me help you.

I’ve read some great posts lately that challenge and encourage and inspire me. My hope is that they’d do the same for you.

Here are five posts (and some excerpts from their posts) you should take time to read this weekend.

1. When Love is the Last Thing You Feel by Alison McLennan. I was touched by these words that challenged me to keep loving when it’s hard.

“Which is the greater sacrifice: to keep a vow when keeping it is a pleasure, or to keep a vow when keeping it takes everything you have?”

I don’t know, in God’s economy, if one is greater than the other. Certainly it is a divine gift to love with ease, to take pleasure in our work, to pour ourselves out for others and find joy in serving.

But what about when we don’t? Is it any less of a gift to labor in those things?

2. #scotus and other stuff by Erika Morrison. (the life artist) Ever disagreed with someone about a controversial issue? Yeah, here’s a good guideline for how to survive that as friends.

So this is my guideline for myself, take it or leave it; adjust and tweak if you so desire: Pray down low. Don’t move until you’ve changed. Suspend your assumptions and walk yourself to the inside of someone else’s skin and story. See that everyone is carrying the weight of their own history; an entire world riding piggy on their backs and everyone is fighting their own battles, wearing their own scars, bleeding from their own wounds, pushing through their own struggles. And move those real live people from the coldness of your cranium to the beating place between your ribs bones and share food and communion there. Look into each other’s soul-windows and watch the Messiah materialize in the image they bear. Hold hands and hug for dear life – all we’ve got is each other. And maybe from this place of kindness and safety, thoughts and convictions can be mutually shared without scathe or savagery or “you’re stupid” words.

3. I hate this day by J.J. Landis. Written in the wake of a local tragedy, J.J. is frank about how our efforts to comfort fall short.

I know in my head what I believe about how the world works. I know we’re fallen and sin screws us up. I know people die, but seriously, it really sucks.

4. Why I Don’t Believe in Grace Anymore by Dr. Kelly Flanagan. Hands-down, when Kelly writes something, I want to read it. This is one of two he wrote recently that I could have recommended.

This is the brilliance of grace: it welcomes our darkness into the light and does nothing to it, knowing that it doesn’t have to, because darkness thrives on hiddenness, and it’s at the mercy of the light. Light drives out darkness, not the other way around.

When we no longer have to push our darkness back down beneath layers of shame our darkness doesn’t stand a chance.

5. Independence by Heather B. Armstrong (dooce). (Warning: This post contains pictures taken inside brothels in Southeast Asia. They are appropriately shocking, but I don’t want them to come as a surprise.) Yes, it’s an uncomfortable subject and it’s hard to talk about and look at, but that’s one reason I’m so glad there are bloggers out there like her who do their part to shine a light on this perverse evil.

Often when we think of that freedom we immediately go to thoughts of our right to free speech, to peaceably assemble, the free exercise of religion and the right to bear arms. I would guess that rarely do we seriously reflect on some of the very basic privileges afforded to us as well: the ability to leave our rooms and homes, the ability to live with our families and the years spent watching them grow, freedom from having to sell our bodies for sex.

Read more: http://dooce.com/2014/07/02/independence/#ixzz37ftn0ZCF

What would you add to this list?