New Beginnings

I have now been in Denver, Co for 26 days and it feels like I have been here way longer. Transitions are always difficult, but for the first time I have had a new realization of why it is so difficult for me.

All my life I have been trying to just survive. If I can just get through this then things will be better, but the reality is that by trying to shut out the bad things I have pushed away many good things. For example: believe that people who have just known me for 26 days actually love me. That in my mind does not make sense. Love is something that comes with time and that last through trials, but it does not just happen because I exist. (see that is the lie I have come to believe)

The truth is that we actually are all loved for the mere fact that we exist because in our existence we have in us an image of God that no one else on this earth can replace.

All this time I have thought that I am an honest person, but never even realized the lies that I have believed. I am not to be selective in my love and that only certain people deserve it, but we were all created equally. God didn't create some good and others very good. Yet, I have believe that for so long because it is what the world tells us.

If I cant accept the love the women in my community are trying to show me just because I think they don't know me, then how do I expect the people on the streets that I meet believe that I am there to love them?

All the ways I have learned to keep people out are the defense mechanism I have learned, but I don't have to be afraid anymore. I am not that same little girl afraid of being hurt. It is safe to just be me without constantly having to be on guard.

I know I am not meant to be best friends with everyone, but we still are called to love everyone. You get a deeper love with family and friends that you are closer to, but that we were created to love.
We were created in love, for love. The world has distorted this word to be just a feeling, but love is not just a feeling. Love is a choice.

To choose to love that beggar on the street by just looking at him/her in the eye and giving them the dignity the have just by acknowledging they exist. To choose to love the drunk and just listen to his stories because he is worth listening to. To choose to love those who don't even know how to love themselves because they are enslaved by worldly things. It is not easy. It is not meant to be easy.

Do you think Jesus as He was being nailed to the cross for our sins out of love for us thought to Him self this feels good? No, but it was a choice He made.

I am realizing love is always going to hurt, it is never going to be easy, but the hurt has meaning because in that little bit of suffering we get to be united to Jesus on the cross.

I am learning to love and to truly accept the love of others. I am learning to be humble that I cannot change peoples circumstances and that I am not called to, but I am called to love them.
To allow them to impacted me and be transformed in all the ways I encounter Jesus.

We will be judge on the last day on how well we loved, truly loved the poor and needy.

May we not be afraid to love. May we not be afraid of the uncomfortable.

"There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.”- C.S. Lewis "The Four Loves"

Please continue to pray for all the missionaries in the world trying to love may they always remember it is only because they were loved first that they can share the love with others!

Also, Happy Birthday shout out to one of the best gifts I have ever received, Miss Amy Burt. I love you!