Beloved

I suppose I just can’t help it. It’s Valentines Day, so my thoughts have turned to love. Sitting here in my dorm room, I can see the potted tulips and bouquet of roses placed precariously on my roommate’s desk – gifts from her boyfriend. A sparkly purple card adorns my other roommate’s desk; it came from her mom in the mail yesterday. As glad as I am for the expressions of love they have received, my thoughts have taken a somewhat different turn.


I attended a funeral this morning. The first funeral I have ever attended for anyone under the age of seventy. It was one of the most heart-wrenching things I’ve probably ever experienced. Jennifer Uwarow was my Resident Director last semester, until tests showed that a ravaging cancer had reappeared in her body and she was physically, emotionally, and spiritually broken. This morning I was reminded once again of the testimony she left behind – a testimony of a great, faithful, and loving Savior. Even as Jen was brought daily closer to that moment of death, this was the hope she clung to. And at this moment, my greatest desire is to do nothing but bask in the sweetness of the love of Christ.


These words have remained a presence in the back of mind since the day I read them: “On the whole, God's love for us is a much safer subject to think about than our love for Him” (C.S. Lewis). I am easily discouraged when I consider the love I have for my God. Over Christmas break, I prayed asking Him, “Why do I love you so little?” When I consider that Yahweh himself marked out His plan of redemption, boldly drawing in the crucifixion of His only Son, that His love might drench wretched sinners such as myself, I cannot answer this question. The answer reverberates through my being, but it is so terrible and wonderful a truth it pierces me to the core. I am, and always have been, devastated by sin – dead – and I have, in and of myself, absolutely no ability to love my God.


We are told to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Matt. 22:37), but our weak attempts to love God as He should be loved are like shooting balloons into the sky and hoping they will reach Neptune: they cover only a few feet of that endless stretch and fall deflated to the ground, failures. In the face of such circumstances I believe we have only two choices: we can despair or we can fix our eyes on that infinitely safer subject.


“Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might perhaps dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” The truth of these verses is impossible to wrap my mind around. Try as I might to love God as I should, I lie pitifully at His feet, woefully aware of my ungratefulness and ability to be easily wooed by poor, scrawny lovers. Yet even still, my God poured Himself out for me and continues to unwaveringly love me. He loved me when I did not love Him and He loves me now, though I do not love Him as I should. His love for me at this moment is as free, as full, and as passionate as it was as Christ hung on that cross – gasping for breath, suffering for my sin.


C.S. Lewis says, “[God] will give us feelings of love if He pleases. We cannot create them for ourselves, and we must not demand them as a right. But the great thing to remember is that, though our feelings come and go, His love for us does not. It is not wearied by our sins, or our indifference; and, therefore, it is quite relentless in its determination that we shall be cured of those sins, at whatever cost to us, at whatever cost to Him.” How beautiful, how precious is this thought!


Let us treasure the love of God. May it quench our thirsting and satisfy our hunger. But may we never cease to wonder that the Creator of this universe – our holy, magnificent, and glorious God – deigns to call us His beloved. He is ours and we are His. May His love be the only love we ever need.

“And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” (Eph. 3:17-19).

LOVE (III)
by George Herbert
Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning If I lack'd anything.
"A guest," I answer'd, "worthy to be here";
Love said, "You shall be he."
"I, the unkind, the ungrateful? ah my dear, I cannot look on thee.
"Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
"Who made the eyes but I?"
"Truth, Lord, but I have marr'd them; let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.""And know you not," says Love, "who bore the blame?"
"My dear, then I will serve."
"You must sit down," says Love, "and taste my meat."
So I did sit and eat.