Thankful for His Love

If any word has lost its value in our society, it is the word ‘LOVE’. It has become a feel good emotion. It comes and goes as situations arise. So many couples stand together and commit to love each other until death separates them, and yet that commitment does not last through the difficult times. Parents abuse and neglect their children. Children abuse and neglect their parents. When love leaves, dysfunction comes and is rampant in people’s lives today. The world has substituted sex for love and more and more youth and adults are reaping deep scars from the hurt of that substitution.
As the world continues to warp love, real, genuine, and godly love glows like a beacon of light in the darkness. I feel blessed to have experienced love from so many friends, family, and a wonderful husband. I know what God’s love looks like. However, a few years ago I saw the most amazing picture of unconditional love and it will stay in my heart forever. About a year before we moved back to Oklahoma, Dwayne's college basketball coaches' wife became very ill and spent her last many months in a comatose state. He never quit caring for her. Every day, he would feed her and talk to her. He would tell her what a wonderful wife and mother she had been and how blessed he was to have her. I have seen families live through this last stage of life, which I have experienced in our family as well. There comes a point that you realize it would be better for the person to let go of this life and enter into the arms of Christ. Sometimes, you get to the point of praying for it. I understand these feelings and again I have experienced them myself. However, on our last visit with the coach before his wife passed away, he made the following statement to me with tears in his eyes, “I thank God for everyday I get to spend with her. She is a blessing to me.” Wow! He loved her unconditionally. Though she was not able to give anything to him in return, he still thanked God for her. He didn’t complain about the demands her care required of him, or the stress of expecting the end to come each day. He honored his wife until she took her last breath. What a picture of unconditional love.
None of us are able to truly love unconditionally without allowing God to love through us. He is the source of unconditional love and He loves each of us with that amazing love. When we grasp the depths of God’s love for us, it completely changes our relationship with Him. He does not love like we love, and not like our earthly fathers love. When we realize that God loves us no differently when we mess up, we will stop running from Him when we do. We will run to him for restoration and forgiveness. He is like the prodigal son’s father, who waits for his child to return, not to punish him but to celebrate their renewed fellowship. I am thankful for the gift of God’s special love for me and for letting me be a vessel of His love to others. What an honor! It is my desire to never dishonor that gift. Have you accepted the unconditional love of God? Have you quit trying to earn it, or keep it? His love is not based on you, it is based on who He is and He is Love! No matter what we do or what we experience, we can rest in the arms of God’s love!

We know it so well, we’ve embraced it heart and soul, this love that comes from God. God is love. When we take up permanent residence in a life of love,

we live in God and God lives in us.
1 John 4:16