Love

It’s been a tough day.

My day is planned and I have no room for interruptions or inconveniences. It is a day jammed packed with busy work. You know, I have much to do but nothing to accomplish. I’m spent in every which way a person can be spent, and then the phone rings.  I don’t know that I have an emotion I care to share at this point, as I have a momma sitting in an office awaiting for her children to be taken from her. I look into her eyes and there is nothing. I don’t seem to understand and still I sit unable to offer judgment. Momma is pale and 30 lbs. lighter, since I saw her last. I stress at the fact that I will have to see those children. I am stumped at how I should help but in this moment I don’t know how to offer hope. Momma sits unable to make sense of this. Her emotions have taken her to a place so far from where we sit. I don’t have words, so I say nothing. I sit and attempt to love her without words. I wonder if this is what Jesus meant when He said love.

It’s easy to love those that look like us, those that make “good choices”, those that dress like us, those that come in a tidy clean package, and certainly easy to love those that respond to our love. Not so easy to love those that don’t look like us, those that don’t make “good choices”,  those that don’t dress like us, those that don’t come in tidy clean packages, and those that don’t respond to our love. I am under the impression that at times we believe we have the right to qualify others as worthy, before we attempt to love. Well, I have news, we don’t have the right to pick and choose who we can love! We are called to “love our neighbor as ourselves”, regardless.   

Here I sit in a room full of nothing, a room full of material things and yet the room is vacant. I ask momma if I can hug her. She nods her head no. I hug her anyway and there is nothing. I just don’t understand that kind of pain. This momma is unable to receive love. I sit silently because that is all I can do. Is this an act of love? 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-serving, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. This is perfect love and this is how we are expected to love.

It’s time to say goodbye and we step out of this emptiness and walk into a hollow hall. The space around us is void and it seems to consume us. As we turn the corner I glance over and there in the door way are the children. I go to them and look into their eyes, there is nothing. Again I have no emotion to share. Finally outside and I am sustained by my Maker. I watch as the car that holds this family, drives away. I quietly pray and ask that these kids may be loved in a way that creates an atmosphere of hope.

I am broken and this is just the beginning of my day. There are challenges around every corner. I have an appointment that forces me to go to a quiet place, a place where love abounds. I sit while she works on my hair and she listens as I share my heart. This Life Changer allows me to share my emotions and she validates me without words. I feel like maybe the disciples felt while Jesus washed their feet. I am loved without judgment and I am blessed by her words.

It is Friday and it’s late. My body does not seem to be cooperating and I still have to load my SUV. A momma is in need. She has left her home in order to seek love for her being. I quietly pray for help and a Life Changer passes by. She kindly asks if she may be of assistance. I explain, I am good and still she stands at the door way ready to serve.  I don’t not share with her that my physical body is not wanting to cooperate and yet she manages to load all the heavy items. I am grateful beyond words.

Oh no there is no happily ever after today but I can’t carry this with me. So I write it and when I hit send it no longer belongs to me. Love I assure you someone needs it.