How do you know if you’re truly loved? Could it be the way someone looks at you? Talks to you? Someone who’s there for you? Helps you out? Buys you things? Does stuff for you? Lies for you? Spends time with you? Makes you breakfast in bed?
It could be a many number of things that would prove to you that someone loves you. And for everyone it’s different. But I challenge you to see beyond the here and now. Can someone love you for who you really are? Or the person you once were? Ex-con, thief, spouse beater, alcoholic, substance abuser. Think about this.
If someone loves you, do they really know who you are? Do they know you’re background, your history? What are your weaknesses? Alcohol? Pretty women? Macho men? Pot? Porn? Gambling? Do you dare share with them the dark side of you? Where you’ve been, what you’ve done.
I bring this up because today I know I am truly loved. Here before me stood a man who knows the dark side of me. The everything, the in and out. The ugly truth.
My husband knows every detail of my life as I remember it. And I don’t say this loosely. There are things that will come to me in the middle of the night, or through a dream Things I had forgotten. Things I wish would stay forgotten. But they pop up.
These things pop up to remind me that I’m no good. That I have failed. That I’m a miserable excuse for a human being. They get me down, hurt and dejected. Depressed. I don’t even like who I once was. As I’ve said before, if I met me back then, I wouldn’t be my friend.
Here stands my husband. He’s got his headphones on because he’s going to mow the lawn. But he turns around and dances with me for a minute or two. He looks me in the eye and tells me he loves me. He knows all there is to know about me, filthy, wretched things. Things I can not undo, can’t take back, can’t escape from. Yet, he still loves me. Better yet, he loves me knowing my past.
In the movie MEET JOE BLACK, Joe Black asked the brother-in-law….’How do you know she loves you?’ And the brother-in-law’s response is…’ Because she knows the worst things about me and she stayed.’en
How true is this statement!
My hubby knows the worst things about me and he acts like I’m a gift to him. He is the gift. He has changed my world for the better. The dark places of my life can not hide any more; they can’t make me feel ugly and miserable. They have been exposed and he knows of them.
Even over time, he still loves me.
The same with the Savior. He knows everything about me, how many wrongs I’ve done. How many people I’ve hurt. He loves me and wants to change my life for the better. He died for me so that I may not suffer the consequences of my sins, my wrong doings, and my ugliness. Christ too will one day dance with me, much like my husband does. Freely and without hesitation, because His love for me is strong enough to overcome any judgment of what I’ve done.
Who I am has changed. What I’ve done will always remain. Those that love you will look to the yesterdays but look forward to a new and brighter tomorrow.
The greatest gift is love. Christ’s love and sacrifice is the ultimate display of love. John 3:16
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