Choosing to Love

Choosing to Love

Love is a complex emotion isn’t it? I believe God intends for love to be one of the very first emotions we feel. Most babies enter the world surrounded by people just waiting to shower love upon them. I understood that when I experienced the birth of my first child, Ainsley. I loved her instantly. It’s fair to say I loved her before she was born, but once I had her in my arms it felt a hundred times more powerful. The wonderful thing about it was it took absolutely no effort on my part. It was easy and natural. I wish all love came that easy.

The truth is that it is often much more complicated. I have three daughters and I experienced initial love differently with all three. It makes me wonder if God experiences love with each of us differently. When my daughter Daisy was born, the feeling of love did not immediately fill my soul. There were many factors involved, but primarily it was because, if I had to describe that birth experience in one word, it would be traumatic. She was born in the middle of a hurricane…literally…with no electricity or water, let alone drugs! Oh…and she was a little over 9 pounds. My first thought when they placed her on me was… “She’s heavy.”

For the next three days I experienced the “baby blues.” Basically, I didn’t want to see her…someone would bring her in to me, I would feed her and then ask if they wanted to hold her again. I wanted to feel full of love for her but instead I felt totally numb. I couldn’t tell anyone how I was feeling because I was ashamed. On top of that I worried….“Would I ever be able to love her?”

After having my first child I had assumed the experience would be the same for my second. It wasn’t. Thankfully, within the first week my heart did start beating again with the rhythm of mother love. Even though my baby blues did not last long, I wouldn’t rewrite the experience because it fills me with more compassion for those mothers who struggle with any form of post-partum.

My adopted daughter Jerilyn was yet another love experience. We adopted her when she was two and a half years old. God placed her in my heart before he placed her in my home. I knew of the situation she was in and was burdened to really begin praying for her, not anticipating we may become a part of the solution. Isn’t that how God often works? I fell in love with her through prayer. We adopted her and brought her home, where the real work began. She came to us with many difficult issues I was sure love would cure. After a lot of blood, sweat and tears she was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder.

I am not going to lie and say loving Jerilyn has always been easy, but I chose to love her over six years ago and I choose to love her for the rest of my life. Not for what she can give me, but because I can. Love does not have to be a warm fuzzy feeling all the time. No…the unconditional kind of love God calls us to is a choice. It is the choice to love, not expecting anything in return. Isn’t that the type of undeserved love we receive from the Father? “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8, NIV)

Although I cherish my initial love experience with Ainsley, I also cherish, without reservation, my love experiences with Daisy and Jerilyn. I believe they have actually taught me more and have mined the depths of my heart to discover deeper levels of love. Precious jewels cut from the hard rocks of life, absolutely priceless treasures.

Thankfully, God doesn’t wait around to love us until after we have expressed adequate amounts of love for him. I love God with all my heart, but I still fail him…too often. The real shocker is this….he knew how often I would fail him and he still decided to offer me the best of his love. It absolutely has nothing to do with me, it has everything to do with God and his choice to love me. God has CHOSEN to love me!! Guess what? He has CHOSEN to love YOU too!! I don’t know about you but that gets me excited and motivated.

How about you? Who has God placed in your life you need to choose to love?

A selfish husband,

critical parent,

annoying neighbor,

deceitful co-worker?

They are not in your life by accident. We all have someone. Obviously God intends for us to learn through the experience. We have a choice to make about whether we are going to let our relationships with them make us bitter or better. It’s your choice. I say, roll up your sleeves and get to work. I’m not going to tell you it is going to be easy, but it is possible and the rewards will outweigh the effort. If it feels like a monumental task, remember what Jesus said, “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.” (Mark 10:27, NIV)