Squinchy? Swirly? Squirmy?
I don’t know how to title it, where it came from, or why it feels like this…
I’ve got absolutely nothing to complain about. I’m in my kinda place right now: a local, artsy coffee shop. Jesus lovers. Great music. Thinking people. A church meeting place. An art gallery of photography from Haiti. And I’m pretty sure this cup I’m sipping coffee from will be immediately recycled to restore the pearly gates through which all green people will enter Heaven.
But I’m painfully aware of a deep-down discomfort in me today. Perhaps some of it has been gleaned from the hurting and lonely faces I’ve seen amidst holiday hustle and bustle. Perhaps some of it is being homesick – for Africa, for Lifa, and for a place I’ve never known.
What I do know is that I’m calling out on my Jesus to hold me today.
Love feels broken.
I’ve been asking God why love has to feel so broken. Why do we let some people in and not others? Why are there different degrees of love? Family? Home? Belonging? Who decides them? How do we set this invisible criteria we live according to, each person walking around with our own unspoken law?
It’s so uncomfortable to meet all of my own criteria and try to meet others.
It’s time for a new criteria.
A new kind of comfort. A comfort that works even when love feels so broken.
I have a feeling love is going to stay broken…
Whether I’m in America or South Africa.
It’s just a hunch, really.
So I’ve started asking Jesus what He has to say about love in 2011.
Jesus, break me for broken love – in a way that doesn’t look for fixing. In a way that purifies and cleanses the broken. The kind of love that touches the lepers, the orphaned, the widowed, the sick. Even if they don’t get fixed. Even if I don’t get fixed.
And forgive me for this criteria I carry around.
How do I release expectations?
How do I release sadness?
Then He started talking…
Kacy, my Beloved, broken love is sad. But it’s still love and it’s real love.
1 Corinthians 13. Paul’s words were about what perfect love is, reminding us that this is the criteria, but to leave wiggle room for broken pieces for a little while longer.
“…but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears…
Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I show know fully, even as I am fully known.” 1 Corinthians 13:10,12 (NIV)
Perfection is coming. It’s just not here yet.
“But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.” 1 Corinthians 13:13 (The Message)
Love extravagantly.
“Go after a life of love as if your life depended on it—because it does.”
1 Corinthians 14:1a (The Message)
After the shiny gifts are unwrapped, Dick Clark drops the ball and this coffee cup’s been recycled…. It all disappears.
Love remains. It’s broken today, but you tell us to “follow the way to love” (1 Corinthians 14:1a again… this time NIV)
Jesus, show me the way to love. Show me how to follow the way with no expectations, check lists or self-defined disappointment.
I’ll feel the sadness. Broken love is sad. Put my hands, heart, words and all of me into what’s broken. And help me to live by faith, clinging to the hope of what’s coming… perfection.
Inscribe Your words in my heart, so, when it hurts, I’ll remember it’s not for no reason.
“We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may be also revealed in our body… For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.”
1 Corinthians 4:10, 17 (NIV)
He has a lot to say about love in 2011.
Even the broken, bendy, hurty kind of love. I’d rather be broken by broken love than know no love at all.
He’s reminding me now that the perfect part we do have is His Spirit in us, lavishing us with new grace and mercies every morning, washing away our blemishes and broken places and making us white as snow with every sunrise. So even when the broken doesn’t go away, we have Perfect Love in us.
And every word He gives us about what’s broken comes with a promise. A promise of perfection, hope and the right kind of love.
“In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33b (NIV)
The thing is…
It’s been done. Perfect love came to earth and got broken. We broke it. We broke him. And then perfect, broken love said, “It is finished.” John 19:30 (NIV) And promised, “…I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.” John 15:23b (NIV)
So, there you have it.
Squinchy? Swirly? Squirmy?
It’s not going anywhere in me for a while.
Homesick for His Kingdom.
My Home.
Where there are no bends or bruises in love.
Where no one’s sick. No one’s hurt. There’s always enough for everyone.
Where everyone belongs in the Perfect Family.
But the squinchy, swirly and squirmy is being met with a promise of peace, joy and perfect love.
In 2011, Jesus has a lot to say about love.
Love that strips away expectations, criteria and loves through the broken.
Jesus, write a new definition of love for me in 2011.
What’s Jesus saying about love in your 2011?
He’s a Family Man. He’s probably saying the same thing to us all. Let’s do it together.
My bendy, broken self loves you. And I’m giving thanks for the ways you've been love in my life in 2010 - in every shape and form it came in. I can’t wait to do 2011 with you.
Happy New Year!
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