Choosing to Live Loved

A few months ago I wrote a post called, Live Loved.  The moment of revelation described in that post changed my life, but the moment wasn't the end.  God spoke to me that day in March but it has been up to me to choose to live out of His revealed truth or to say it's too hard and continue on in what was so comfortable and easy.  I know that the enemy of my soul wants to see me live all tangled up in lies about being pitied instead of the freedom given by the Truth of Jesus' love for me.

And....

I am determined to choose redemptive Truth as I come face to face with shadowy lies.
I am persistent in choosing to view my circumstances through His eternal perspective instead of seeing through my very limited viewpoint.
I am diligent in choosing to search for His goodness instead of simply taking things just as they are on the surface.
I am steadfast in choosing to count my blessings instead of being overwhelmed by the schemes of the enemy.
I choose to be grateful for each moment when I'm able to recognize His love and goodness instead of desperate in the moments of lonlieness and struggle.
I choose to be joyful in the restorative times shared with friends who have become family instead of hopeless for what has been stolen.
I choose to be passionate in standing with Him for the victory He promises instead of being weary when faced with the battle.
I choose to be resilient as I tell mountain after mountain after mountain to leave in Jesus' name instead of allowing the obstacles to steal my will to keep going forward.

I need to speak and write these declarations -often!- to remind my soul of the things that matter. I need others to hear and see these declarations so that we can remind each other.  I need God to breathe these declarations into me -over and over and over again...- so that I can continue living loved.

In the day to day of life this means choosing to cherish moments, words, experiences that God gives to show me that He hears these declarations and the He is faithful to provide for the dreams He breathes into my soul...

God reminds me that He hears and will be faithful to fulfill in so many ways...  It is my job (and yours) to choose to see His faithfulness and to even find it in the small things.  During the past few months I've seen it in things like....

Gifts of peanut M&M's.

Subway rides in Singapore.
Those moments before loved ones leave and you say, "love you" to each other because it's normal that you matter to each other.

Shared flavored coffee creamer from America (the superior liquid kind, not powder!).

Lunch brought by a friend when a migraine shows up.
Brothers who drive a little slower when I'm on their moto.

The sky when it's deep blue before nightfall. 

Conversations in Khmer about the deep things of God and life. 

Swimming in the afternoon on a day off.

Riding on a moto through rainy season floodwater to spend time with friends.
Phone calls and text messages just to say, "hey, thinking about you, how are you?". 

Being prayed for by ones who know me even when I don't have the strength or courage to pray for myself. 

When someone says it's okay to eat with my hands. 

Apple cinnamon bagels showing up at the grocery store in October. 

Photos of sunsets sent to me by friends who know my heart.

Meals shared in my home and the homes of others.
Times when God speaks so clearly and personally...even when I'm in a room with thousands of other believers.
Skype conversations that are filled with laughter and hope.

When people say they feel at peace and safe in my house because His presence is surely there.

Little ones who shout my name and are excited I came.

People who aren't afraid to speak His truth even when it's hard for them to say and for me to hear.
Phone calls from sisters to share stories of victory.
So many more moments...

Some of His Reminders 

These are a few of the ways Jesus reminds me that the constant, determined, persistent, diligent, steadfast choices to live loved are seen by Him.  He knows it's not easy in this world and He knows we have a choice and He delights in every moment when we choose His love.  Choosing His love instead of the easy, comfortable opposition of old habits and mindsets is work but I promise the results are more than worth it.

What will you choose today?  How have you seen His faithfulness?  

Live Loved

There are those times in life when God teaches me something brand new about something that I thought was so simple.  Recently, this has happened with the idea of being loved by God as opposed to pitied by others.  

What does it actually mean, actually look like to live as a person who is fully confident that they are loved by God?  Always.  No matter what else is going on around us.  Regardless of what ANYone tells us or says about us.  Whether we feel loved or not in any given moment.

I think the words, "any given moment" are key to this thing.  At least for how my journey with being loved by God is taking shape.  Many days I can only live loved (with any type of confidence) on a moment by moment basis.  And those moments are so full of power!

A few weeks ago God helped me discover, quite unexpectedly, the biggest lie that sets itself up every day to oppose the Truth that I'm loved by God.  I was sitting with one of my favorite friends on my bench swing on the front balcony of my 4th floor apartment here in Phnom Penh.  It was a really beautiful Friday morning; there was a breeze and birds could be heard singing instead of construction noise or wedding/funeral music and I was totally delighting in it! We began to talk about identity and the conversation progressed into the question, "Why don't you fully believe you're loved by God?" My answer came with such speed that it kind of shocked me. 

"Well, usually what stops me from believing I'm loved is the thought that I'm only pitied by people, not loved." Whoa.... Wait.... Did I really just say that??? So fast??? Yikes.  I didn't really know that was in there....  And so we talked about it a bit, me and my friend.  

Pity is defined as, "A feeling of sorrow for the misfortune of others, a cause for regret or disappointment."  I do not like pity.  I do not like others to define my circumstances as misfortune.  I've never liked pity and even more so since I have been following Jesus. Me and Jesus get to decide what my circumstances are and He never tells me that they are, "misfortune"

According to the standards of this world I have a disability.  I'm legally blind and have been since I was 2 years old.  And, reality is, it does limit me- I cannot play any contact sports (basically all this leaves me with as options are bowling and golf....super cool when you're a kid in school!), I can't speed read (I really wanted to take that class in high school, seriously, I thought it would be an awesome skill to have! But, I failed that and art 3 times) and I can't legally drive (although, I might have some friends who've let drive in parking lots...). Okay, so limitations, right? Well, I grew up quite determined to not live as if I were limited in any way and the pity I felt from other people only added fuel to that fire.  I saw friends' parents pity me because I wan't included in lots of the "fun stuff" of recess games and bumper car birthday parties.  I saw teachers pity me because I never could fully learn to write in cursive and couldn't copy my own notes from the blackboard and couldn't watch movies with the class when they would roll that tiny tv in on a cart.  They felt disappointed because I didn't fit the expectations.  But, if I hadn't picked up on their pity I would have been quite content.  Instead, I became very aware that I couldn't do this or that.

This played out in other areas of my life as well.  For example, I come from a very unstable home life- people pitied me because I didn't have clean clothes (they didn't help, they just talked about it above my 7 year old head as if I couldn't hear them), pitied because my parents were divorced and couldn't act civil in public and pitied when at 15 I finally became a foster child along with my younger brothers because our mom wasn't being responsible.  

I was always making lots of efforts to live in a way that wouldn't give others reason to declare my life "disappointing" or to feel "regret" over the "misfortune" of my situations.  Which leads us back to that morning on my bench swing a few weeks ago... 

I told my friend these things.  I told him all the lies the enemy of my soul has made me believe all these years. I told him how each time someone does something caring for me I still would wrestle with the question, "Do they love me or pity me?" He listened. He didn't argue with me or try to prove God's love to me. He didn't pity me by saying how disappointed he was for me or how sad this was... Instead he gave me options.  

He encouraged me to action.  He told me I could change the way I doubted love and called it pity.  He empowered me by drawing me closer to Jesus.  

"For I have drawn you with loving-kindness, I have loved you with an everlasting love," says the Lord." (Jeremiah 31:3) are the words my friend read to me right before he asked me if I wanted to pray. He had no idea that verse was the verse from 14 years ago that caused me to begin to believe that God could actually love me in a personal way.  He wasn't asking me to pray just any prayer, this was very intentional.  He asked me to pray how I feel when I live in the lie of being pitied and then to declare the Truth.

I found myself saying things like, 

"God, when I believe I'm broken and pitied it makes me doubt Your goodness."

"When I believe I'm pitied instead of loved it makes me doubt Your plans for my life."

"It makes me doubt who You are." 

"It makes me doubt the people You've placed in my life"

"It makes me doubt who You say I am"

"Doubting leads me to pity my own self..."

GROSS. YUCK. ICK. GET OUT OF HERE YOU LIES!!!!!!

And then, then the Truth came....

"God, I want Your help to believe I'm loved"

"I want to see You in people first. You are in the people You have put in my life."

"God, You set up circumstances in my life because You love me. When people are at the right place at the moments when I need help it's because You love me, not because they pity me"

"When I choose to live out of being loved I see You in every part of my life."  

YES! WOOHOO!! TRUTH!!! TRUTH THAT SETS FREE AND CHANGES THINGS!!!! 

Jesus changed me during that time of prayer.  Not because I woke up the next morning and every thought I had was grounded in His love for me.   That's not what happened.  Sometimes, that is what God does but not this time.  That pity lie has been comfortable for almost 30 years and it is taking some W-O-R-K to get rid of it.  I ask God to help me recognize when I'm about to believe pity and then I make a real choice to let go of that assumption believe love instead.  It's an every moment kind of journey for me.  And, I'm being set free each time I choose to live loved.