Loving

When I was growing up I didn't know how life would look.  Hey, I didn't even know how life SHOULD look.  But I had a heart for loving.  For embracing life.  I was held by an ever loving God who never let go of me.  I turned to him when I was just barely 7 years old....it feels like six, but I had gone to camp after my first grade year, so I was seven.  I heard a message that said that God loved me.  That even if there was only me, He still would have come to earth to let me know how much he loved me.  Just me.  Even me.  And, I walked forward with a group of weepy girls to say yes to His offer to walk with me forever.  But, I didn't do it then.  I was influenced by the girls.  By the emotion.  But late that night.  In the absolute quiet of the cabin, I asked Him to walk with me.  Asked Him to be with me and help me to make it through. I knew that I wouldn't make it.  At that very young age life was already so hard that I didn't know how to make it.  I knew that it was hard.  Mom died.  Home life a mess with a step mom and a dad who went away.  Scared.  Alone.  Nightmares.  Fears.  Troubled.  But He heard that little tiny girl voice.  He heard.  And He answered.  He was present.  He didn't hand me a list of rules.  He didn't try to make me act a certain way.  He didn't chastise me for being afraid.  He just came.  with a powerful sense of peace.  Of well being.  And I was changed.  I was comforted.  I was held.  I was encouraged.
Life didn't get better.  It actually got worse.  And worse.  And overwhelming.  But that day changed what might have been.  Because in the place of where there might have been despair there was hope.  There was a vision in my soul of what could be.  What a good thing that was.  Truly good.  Blessing.  I didn't know that God could actually see me.  Could actually feel my pain.  But, though I was ignorant, He did all of that.
And He taught me how to love.  Rightly and directly.  Completely.  Wholeheartedly.  And all of the places that were broken He mended and made new.  He brought people and circumstances that brought joy and peace and a deep sense of well being.
So many things in life are not that way.  But, God has been good.  He has been faithful.  And He will continue to be faithful to my children.  Not because they get it or understand it, but because He promised.
Loving.  He is.  Toward me and through me.  I love that.  I live because of that.  He is.  So I can be.