Christmas Time Is Near: Advent Day 10

1 John 4:9-10  This is how God showed his love among us:  He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.  This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Today's writings were about first love.  Do you remember your first love?  Can I tell you a secret?  My first crush was in first grade and I think every thing that followed was a mere crush or lust but my first love?  John.

Not 'in love' but  true love, the lasting sort of love.  Hard to tell the difference if you've never experienced it but it's amazing.  I have fallen in and out of love with him many times over.  I always LOVE him though, a love based on like, respect, admiration, trust and desire.  Love is very complex.



I can remember the exact moment I realized I loved him.  I was answering a phone call and leaning against the kitchen counter.  Honesty time:  A man I knew had just called me up out of the blue.  He was one of those sporadic sort, who called just often enough to keep stringing you along.     I'd thought I'd run to the ends of the earth for him...Ha.  Turns out the end of the earth wasn't as long as the phone cord.   I'd known John just two weeks at this point.  He had come by to visit that afternoon and was sitting at the kitchen table.  I looked up as the caller spoke to me and met John's eyes and I remember thinking, "Now that is as fine a man as I'll ever meet."  I wasn't just referring to his good looks, lol.  I remember thinking "And I'd be one lucky girl if he loved me as much as I love him."  I interrupted the caller and told him I was busy.  When he asked when was a good time to call back, I replied, "Well... never, really."

It took John a good bit longer to confess he loved me.  He'll tell everyone that he liked me for a long time before he let himself love me.  Truth time again:  He realized he loved me when I issued an ultimatum and told him that while I loved him there was a time limit on how long I'd play around with him.  We each had children and they were just as invested in us as a couple as I was in him.  It was time he did some soul searching and made up his mind if he wanted to make a full commitment or move on.  I told him I had a deadline in mind but refused to tell him the date though I assured him it wasn't a two day or two week time frame.  I wanted him to make an honest assessment of his feelings without feeling pressured, but yes, pressured too, at the same time to finally decide if this was right for him.

Well...He asked me to marry him a couple of months later.  Naturally I said, "Yes!" and didn't have to think about it.

It was during our courtship days that I sensed God's love for the first time.   Here I was, living with a man to whom I wasn't married, with a failed marriage behind me and a whole lot of baggage of all sorts and sizes stacked around me.  I'd  been convinced that I had to 'get my life together' before I could go before God.    One day I realized that just as surely as I'd known I loved John, God loved me and he loved me just as I was, right where I was in the midst of all that baggage. It was a revelation that melted every bit of resistance I'd had.  I went down on my knees and asked for forgiveness, accepted his love and stepped forward into new life.

It's true I had a hard time understanding God as Father but because of John I understood love in a way I'd never understood it in my entire life.  It wasn't a conditional thing based on how well I performed or behaved or how hard I worked or how I looked.  It just was.  Wonderfully somehow God got that across to me.  He loved me.  He loves you.