Love?!

I let go because I love

I love because I let go...

Love?! 

It’s about those glances from across the room, those butterflies in your stomach,  and even those 'I can’t get any word out ' moments. It’s about those little moments of needs noticed and caring for each other. It's about leaning in and grasping hands to get through the unstable together. It’s also about awkward conversation, risking rejection and  being aware of each other’s interests. It’s about those can’t eat, can’t sleep and can’t even listen to a love song without thinking about him moments. It’s cheesy like a romance movie and painful like heart surgery. It inspires paintings, poems, song lyrics and dancing. It makes you laugh until you cry and then cry until you laugh. It makes you savor sunsets, trees, oceans and even the simplest cup of tea  tastes better when shared in the company of ones you love..

Oh but here is where it’s also just as real!

Love?!

It has a cost. There is a selfless, sacrifice part of it all.  A painful maybe unexplained or even unnoticed giving up of oneself! This is the part I find myself praying through these days...not just in a  swoony romantic way, but in every day livin'...even with the face in front of me.

“GOD SO LOVED THAT HE GAVE...” He loved so He let go?! My heart wrestles into a peace when I think about how sometimes the most loving thing you can ever do is let go of someone or release the love you’ve been holding so someone else can receive it. Annd so to love these days has had me crying messy tears in coffee shops as I say so long. It has me holding a hug a little longer, taking time to hand write a note,  and has had me praying  for us to have  a holy courage to enter in to the cost of loving truly and wholly (holy), EVEN IF IT HURTS! Ahh, but who am I kidding?!  My heart is still open for  love to look something like the “kiss in the rain” scene or  the 'Mr. Darcy walking through the foggy field moment' ...because love is all those simple little moments and even the painful ones too! 

Love compels people to go...and love moves others to stay.
Love makes people giggle with unnecessary delight and causes others to hurt and endure suffering.  What mystery! 

So I let go because I love...

I love because I let go. 
I let go so I can receive...I let go so I can give...

This is the Gospel 

This is loving our lives not unto death.

This is knowing you are the BELOVED and are worthy of His kind of love.

Are you ready to let go so you can love, friend? Is there husband, wife,  a brother, sister, son, daughter or friend  that you have been clinging to? Let go even if it's hard and breathe  in hope as you begin let love FILL that empty space.

LET GO!

I Corinthians 13:

If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.

If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing.

If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.

Love never dies.