Love expanded: Part 1

Before I launch into my thoughts, I want you to know that I am completely aware that in the scheme of human suffering and injustice, my struggles are not even a blip. That being said, they are still real struggles that, on an individual level, create a personal pain that I carry.
 
I was sharing some of my journey through my health problems with some of my sisters-in-the-Lord last night, and as I talked, God opened up a little window into some of His purposes for my pain. 

Many years ago, when I exited the valley that makes the one I am currently in too familiar, I entered it without Jesus and exited it following Him. I looked at the sorrows of my failing health with humility and gratitude because if He hadn’t physically swept my feet from beneath me, I could not see a way I would have bowed my knee to Him. I entered my valley as a stubborn, independent, self-centered girl who spoke too quickly (often in anger), cared only about myself and kept the disappointing world at arm’s length because I “could take care of myself.” I exited the valley a teachable, dependent on God, prayerful woman who was willing to look into the eyes of a hurting world, requiring nothing from it. I am grateful for the revealed weaknesses, the months of literal silence, the pains I persevered through because through them, God spoke to me, revealed Himself to me and drew me into His arms.

But as I consider my health and the last 15 years, I have observed and experienced them through a distorted lens given to me from the pulpit throughout my childhood. The view of God’s love that I left my childhood church with was this: “The Lord disciplines the ones He loves.” While this is true, this is so far from an encompassing view of the love of God that were a person to observe all the pains of life through this narrow scope, they would invariably find themselves with an incredibly skewed understanding of God.

Because here’s the truth...yes, when I got sick, I was not walking with the Lord; I didn’t lean on Him, I didn’t follow Him, I didn’t love Him, I didn’t want much to do with Him. To be fair, I didn’t know HOW to do those things or what it would even look like or why it would be desirable. God used my health to draw me to Himself and I am eternally grateful...literally. But who I was then is not who I am now. I have walked with Jesus for 12 years; I follow Him, love Him, delight in Him, lean on Him, trust Him; He has taken out the heart of stone and given me a heart of flesh; He has an open invitation to shape and sanctify and use me however He wishes; to my knowledge, I withhold nothing from Him and deal with my sin before Him without fear. My heart is freely moldable in His loving hands...I do not require discipline because I am not wayward; I am sitting in His palm, I am clinging to His feet.

And God is uprooting my view of His love; the narrow-minded, painful view of what my suffering means to Him. Because if I believe He is disciplining me when my heart is devoted and submitted to Him, what kind of father is He? To take a life that says, “I want things Your way,” and to treat it as one that is rebellious, that would not be loving or kind or good (all of which God is), it would be cruel and abusive (which God is not). His love fits His nature and His character; infinite, merciful, unchanging, just, patient, good.

Yes, God is uprooting my view of His love, and with it, the distorted, confusing view of what my suffering means to Him. And this time, as I face my valley with its familiar, dreaded pains and symptoms, He is pushing back against the lies the enemy planted (“If I only do this better, God will bless me...if I can just grow in this area, God will give me what I desire...etc."). To every claim of effort and earning, He speaks the truth that His love for me is not contingent on how good or bad I am; that the purpose of my suffering is not discipline because our relationship has already been restored through Jesus; that ease of life does not accurately reflect abundance of love; that real Love seeks the eternal good that sometimes requires the temporal waiting...

So I am learning a lot about the love of the Lord; about His affections, His fervency, His glorious zeal for my good. And though I don’t have words to articulate what it is, I am beginning to recognize it, beginning to feel it, beginning to believe it and beginning to delight in the effects of it landing upon me...just as I am.