First, my shoulders
get this feeling like I'm about to get struck by lightning. Then, my heart gets tingly. It's all down hill from there. My throat feels swollen. My face scrunches up like an accordion and my
eyes get red and overflowy.
It's love. It's how I feel when there are 70 people at a
birthday party for SG and I, singing Happy Birthday to us, dropping every R in
their precious Aussie accents. (Happy Buhthday
to you…) It's how I feel when someone
tells me they know I'm going to be a good teacher. It's how I feel when I'm crying my brains out
for someone else's hurts. It's how I
feel when I read Isaiah 43.
And I like it. And I don't really
like it.
I like the attention
and I like the compliments. I like the
thought of having friends worth sobbing over.
I like the idea of a strong God who cares about the world. But being loved? Mmm.
Not so sure about that one. If
I'm going to tell you the truth, being loved unnerves me a little.
Wouldn't life be
easier if I were just a snail? You laugh, but I'm serious. I could
go through life without a care in the world except salt and pesticide and
things that eat snails. I'd just live in
my shell and eat people's plants. There
would be no hurt and no hurting, just living.
Think about the expectations for a snail! All people expect you to do is leave slime
trails and hide in your shell when you get picked up. Sounds pretty easy to deliver satisfactory
results.
When people love me,
it means I matter. When God loves me, I
matter infinitely more. I don't matter
because my hair is soft, or because I got good grades in college, or because
I'm a gregarious extrovert. I matter
because I am loved. The reverse makes me
much more comfortable because it makes sense.
It's fair. I can understand being
loved because I matter. If I score the winning point, or practice the
piano with enough fervor, I will matter, and I will be loved. If I fail, I will cease to matter and the
love will be bestowed on an object more worthy of it. It's like winning or losing a contest. It's only fair, right?
What's not fair is
when Jesus decided I mattered because He loved me. He decided I mattered so much that He would
get splinters in His fingers, be lonely sometimes, and even die on a cross. I never had the chance to tell Him not
to. It wasn't fair. He shouldn't have done it. I'm not worth His life. I didn't do anything to deserve being
rescued. He went to so much trouble, and
I'm just me. It's not fair. I can never pay Him back. Why did You do this! That's what I want to yell because it's wrong
that He had to clean up my mess.
The answer I get
doesn't make much sense. Love. How could love make people matter, and how
could it possibly be true that I'm at the receiving end of so much of it. Oh, sure, theologically, I could explain it
to you and take you on a trek all over the Bible that tells the story of God's
love. I could tell you all about how God
created people to be in relationships as a reflection of the community in the
Trinity or Tri-unity of God. I could
tell you about the sociological and physical benefits of having people who love
you.
That doesn't mean
the whole thing doesn't scare the breath right out of me.
With love, there is
dependence. I don't like that. It's fine for people to depend on me. I'm made of good, reliable stuff. I'll help you pack or clean house or write
you a card when you're sick. But
me? Depend on other people? Eh.
Maybe for a lift to church, but really, I wouldn't mind walking. Uphill.
In the rain. Depend on people
emotionally? Ahem. Once again, I'd be happy for anyone to cry on
my shoulder. Tell me whatever's on your
mind. Not a problem, but be vulnerable
myself? Let people think I can be
hurt? Let people think I have
needs? That's asking too much.
With love, there is
mattering, and with mattering, there are expectations. In his first letter from the isle of Patmos,
John writes that "perfect love casts out fear". With love, you can fly, you can scale the
highest mountains, you can change the world.
You aren't afraid to try. You know that real love makes you matter; it
doesn't exist because you matter.
There's something
about the whole thing that's fierce, mesmerizing, too good to be true. How could we have any conception of true love
if it didn't exist? If it's really true,
if people really do love me whether or not I can sing or bake, it's like a
sunny day after a week of rain. If God
really does make me matter with His love, it's the most sparkling, beautiful,
life-giving sunshine that ever was. And
all I can do is soak up the sun and shake my head in wonder.
I am indebted to all
those who have loved me, which I'm told is not a debt at all.
Learning to be loved,
Little Miss Sunshine
PS If ever you have
let me cry rivers of snot and salt water onto your sleeve, or written me a
letter, or given me the gift of your thoughtfulness and time, this post is very
much dedicated to you.
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