Demonstrate Love

     Good news: the sun has started coming up earlier. I get to watch the sunrise on my drive to work now and soon, I'll have sunshine when I wake up, which will hopefully make a remarkable difference in my attitude towards my alarm. I also bought farm strawberries on my way home today and I am exceptionally excited for them. I've already had a couple and I might make meringues for them later, they are truly lovely. Fruit and vegetables and my flowers are the highlight of summer for me, though that season is slow in coming. It was freezing this morning and I drove through snow on Monday. North Carolina weather is special. 

    This past Sunday, we celebrated Easter! I get excited about it for lamb and hot cross buns. Admittedly, I probably didn't give the holiday the gravity it deserves this year. I went to visit my fiancé and between the drive, having to socialize, and the fact that I was sitting right next to the air condition in church, it was just a regular Sunday to me with the bonus of eating lamb. With all the reading I've been doing and the conversations I've been having with my family and in my YA group, I've learned so much about God and who He is. I feel like I've grown and been challenged in my faith. Of all the years, this one should've been the one where Easter had the biggest impact on me. 

    Jesus came to this world and demonstrated His love for us by living purely. If you want to know who God is, read the gospels and look at how Jesus loved, how he carried himself, how he responded to pain and grief. He prayed, he was obedient and full of faith, even to the point of a death He didn't deserve. Perfect and blameless, Jesus took on our sin and died for our forgiveness. Honestly, that's such a hard concept to wrap my brain around. I don't know if I could die for someone, let alone imagine a circumstance where my life is worth someone else's. All around us, we see death and suffering. That's all we know and it's hard to picture a world and a life without it but that's what Jesus died for. He took all of the darkness and sin on himself and died so that we could know light and purity. Death was defeated, the debt against us was paid in full, and the son of God was given back to the earth where he remained for three days. The best part is, he didn't stay there and that is what we remember on Easter. 

    Romans 5:6-11 has this to say: "When the time was right, the Anointed One died for all of us who were far from God, powerless, and weak. Now it is rare to find someone willing to die for an upright person, although it’s possible that someone may give up his life for one who is truly good. But think about this: while we were wasting our lives in sin, God revealed His powerful love to us in a tangible display—the Anointed One died for us. As a result, the blood of Jesus has made us right with God now, and certainly we will be rescued by Him from God’s wrath in the future. If we were in the heat of combat with God when His Son reconciled us by laying down His life, then how much more will we be saved by Jesus’ resurrection life? In fact, we stand now reconciled and at peace with God. That’s why we celebrate in God through our Lord Jesus, the Anointed."

    I want to live my life in a way that reflects God's character and holiness, not just because of what He's done but because of  who He is. I want to be a light and to bring Him glory because I am so undeserving of the grace given. Jesus didn't have to die and he didn't have to live either. He could've just accepted his fate on the cross and let humanity kill him, leaving us to our just deserts. He loved us though, in spite of it all. He knew what we could do and who we could be, given the chance. He's seen us at our absolute worst and loved us anyway. I'm getting married in October and I'm learning more and more what it means to choose to love someone for all they are and all they will be and learning to let him love me too. It's hard. You don't want people to see the weird or the broken things. You want them to see you at your best but that's not true love. It's circumstantial love, dependent on what you do or look like, how you behave, the things you say. The bait you catch them with is the bait you have to keep them with. 

    God is holy and that means He's pure. There's no limit on what He has to offer and very few terms and conditions. He wants to love us, we see that with Jesus. He's worth believing and the one who's most deserving of our trust and our love. It's a choice we have to make, to accept Him for all He is and all He asks of us because He loves us unconditionally. I'm still learning with both God and people but I want to love like that too. I don't want to take anything for granted. Life is incredible and beautiful, in spite of it's hardships, and I want to live my life giving glory to the one who gave me life in the first place.

Yours truly,

Rey