Humble Beginnings

As a young girl, my mom and dad took me to church. I went alone. I am not sure why my parents didn't go with me or even why I wanted to go, but every Sunday they faithfully drove me to the little church down the road. It was a small little church, L shaped with a small Chapel at one end and the a long concrete side walk with a metal over hang adjacent to the parking lot at the other. Off the sidwalk were a number of rooms, one of which is where I attended Sunday School and began my journey with God. I still have a little treasure from those days ~ it's a plain white piece of regular paper folded in half with the words "Jesus Loves"printed in black on the outside cover and an oval mirror glued to the inside. The implication of course is Jesus love the person in the mirror ~ me. For some reason, despite all the other treasures I have made through out the years, some rather elaborate, this one remains very special to me. What is interesting about that is that this didn't have it didn't have a profound inpact on me ~ not then and not now ~ Yet for all these years, through all my different purgings of unnecessary collectible, this one has remained. I didn't feel particuarly loved, there was never any stiring of my spirit ~ there was nothing special about it. It's pretty plain and of no significant impact. But for some reason, I hung on to it? As I sit here now, 47 years old, I can see that the desire of my heart has always been .... to know that love....to know that I was loved. I have been hungry for love all of my life and yet I have yet to experience it. There have been seasons where there was the hope of love, real love ~ my first marriage, and then my second, my various walks of faith, different spiritual journeys all of which have shaped my character and improved the quality of my life, but none that have opened my heart to know the joy of real love. If I were to be completely honest, I don't know if I have ever felt or experienced real love. So when I read "Jesus Loves" and see the mirror image of me, there is nothing stirring in my heart. It is dead with unbelief. Not because of who God is ..... I beleive that he is amazing, wonderful, wise, loving, gracious, good and abounding in love. Actually, there have been many times that those around me have extended their gracious hand of love to me. So why then do I, like so many, not connect with that? Why is His love not exploding in my heart and transforming me daily into the image of Him?

1 Corinthians 13:1-8a and 13 tell us ....
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

I have developed many spiritual habits, but I am afraid that I am described in those scriptures above. I have been able to develop many of the spiritual disciplines, I have even attempted with reasonable success to live out the "disciplines of love" as found in later in that same passage

Love is patient, love is kind, and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. I Corinthian 13:4-8

But I have done these mostly out of obligation and duty to God, trying to "do" love. Trying to be good. To be loving. Because I was taught that love is not a feeling, but it is something that you do. Hmmmm? I'm wondering if that is really true. Is that all there is?

I John 4:8 tells us,
The person who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

Do I love? Do I even really know what love is? In all of my efforts, have I missed the mark? Although I can clearly see the hand of God though out my life, am I missing the most important ingredient?



Here is a song that reminds us that without love, I am nothing. I fear I am but a gong, but i
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNz_Zf-_GAY


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APrUPPC8bFY&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOYhkc4n6Sg&feature=related
The Heart of Worship ~ it's all about you ... Jesus!
.....your love came into my heart .....


So this shall be our beginning. We will travel through my life with all of it's ups and downs. We will see God there ~ all through my life ~ teaching me, transforming, loving me in the midst of all of my mess and shame. And in this process, maybe together we will find