I wake up Valentine’s Day to an empty bed.

The pink hearts and cute cupcakes we made don’t make the sheets warm. They don’t hold me strong and whisper hope and connect deep.

My Valentine is hundreds of miles away, sleeping in a strange bed in a foreign country and I wonder…

What do you do when love seems so far away? When you know the disconnect, the unfulfilled longings? When you crave it and no amount of cute pink and red fun fills the void?

How exactly can I stay filled up with love?

The kids are noisy and demanding and the environment is definitely not lit with soft candles as I open the letter from the greatest Valentine of all. But there are words, words of possibility and hope. Real words describing a REAL condition, just as real as my empty bed and noisy surroundings.

We can stay in Love.

No matter what. A provision has been made for us to enter into the Love Circle and stay there.

Author Keri Kent writes,

“Love consists, so often, of simply showing up. To be present with someone communicates far more than words. In a friend’s moment of grief or need, our presence is a far greater gift than anything we might bring or do, or even say.

The Incarnation is the ultimate example of “showing up.” But even now, two millennia later, if we pay attention, we will notice when Jesus shows up. He makes good on his promise to abide with us. His constant “being with” can be a source of comfort and joy. His inescapable presence consoles but also convicts. Our response varies by day, or even by moment.

Jesus is fully present with us, no matter where we go. The question is, do we acknowledge that presence? And do we, for lack of a better term, take advantage of it? Do we fully exploit and enjoy the fact that Jesus himself is nearby, looking at us with love?

How would we live if we fully embraced this incredible truth at all times?”

How indeed? To live every day a Valentine’s Day with a very present and real Lover who sacrifices everything to redeem and restore and relate with me?

It’s what we have, you know.

Maybe this Lent it’s time not to set rules but set aside a broken heart? Maybe it’s time to exchange empty fluff for real substance? For relationship? For Presence? Maybe it’s time to practice living loved?

An Invitation this Lent

 

from Keri Wyatt Kent, author of Deeply Loved:

 

Join Keri on a 40 day Lent study of her book Deeply Loved: 40 Ways in 40 Days to Experience the Heart of Jesuson Facebook or by following her on Twitter (@KeriWyattKent #DeeplyLoved).

To read more from Deeply Loved, find the book at your favorite retailer or download the eBook for half price for a limited time.

About the Author:
Keri Wyatt Kent is the author of ten books, a freelance writer and speaker. She writes and speaks about slowing down, simplifying and listening to God. Excerpt from Deeply Loved: 40 Ways in 40 Days to Experience the Heart of Jesusby Keri Wyatt Kent. © by Abingdon Press. Used by Permission.

 

Live Loved, my friends!

Ever since Richmond, we’ve looked for hearts.

It was July and every day we walked the hot black asphalt to get to our classes, Jackson and I to ours and the kids to theirs. Missionary training.

And one morning when we were running late of course,  Sunshine girl stopped on the black and pointed down. “Look momma,” she called to me already pushing ahead. “It’s a heart.”

Something, a divine hand perhaps, caused me to slow.

Sure enough, there in the burning black lay a speck of white, a glistening heart.

I looked my sunshine girl in the eyes and I told her that God wanted us to know that He loves us. “He’s sent us a message,” I said. “He’s reminding us that we are loved.”

Her smile and twinkle told me the words reached deep and we held hands and arrived late to our classes. Ever since then, we’ve searched for hearts.

And one day when the ordinary and mundane are in full swing and we are driving down I-40, Sunshine girl exclaims, “A heart momma! Look!” And I look up and there on a blank white billboard is the shape of a heart. It’s cut out of the board and you can see clear through- just an empty billboard with a heart blown through it.

We know we’re loved.

And one day when we are walking down the sidewalk, there’s a chalk heart and Sunshine reminds me “we are loved, momma.”

And then one day we go hiking with friends. Seven kids and four adults and getting lost and feeling tired and carrying piggyback…and a perfect heart. “Momma! Look what I found!” She’s yelling at me from behind, interupting the adult conversation that’s so rare. “What is it,” I ask and there she holds it in her palm: a heart stone the color of gold.

“Let me see, let me see!” her friend cries and snatches it out of her hand. “No, it is mine, I found it!” And mommas have to intervene and calm the fight.

Later, she slips up to me and whispers, “I gave Anna Grace my heart stone” and I have to admit my heart twinges strong. I want her heart stone to go into her keepsake box, a little reminder of how loved she is.

But I smile and tell her that was so kind and I stroke her face and she beams at me happy.

He speaks to me in that moment, He does. “If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. Herein is love made perfect in us.”

Love is perfected in me when I love another.

Love is perfected in me when I love another!

Love is not complete until I give it away. And I look at Sunshine girl~ who cares so deeply about a heart stone~ slipping it to a friend who throws it in the dirt and moves on.

Isn’t this why we hold back? Is this not the reason why we find love imperfected in our lives? Because we know someone will take the sacred from us and trample it? This is the kind of love that fears, an imperfect love, because perfect love casts out fears.

So we give stingy love. We love as long as it doesn’t cost us. We love if it’s going to be worth the investment. We aren’t lavish and free and generous with our love. We protect our stone hearts.

I wonder how to overcome the fear. How to give it away, just like that heart stone…even when you know it’s going to be ill treated or lightly esteemed and I cry for my girls who need to see momma letting love be perfected.

That’s when He speaks again:

“My child, you can never lose love. You can only lose the stone heart.”

When we give love away, love is not lost. Only the heart of stone is. When I give love, even if it is trampled, I only lose that which is worthless in me. I can never lose the precious.

If love makes a demand that I want to shy away from, I need only remember that He is asking me for my stone heart. I can never lose the precious!

So friend, in whatever situation you are facing, here’s your heart. It’s to remind you that you are loved.

Now what are you going to do with it?

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On my knees on the red carpet, the one with the play dough ground in.

“I’ll be your hero, mom,” he had told me.

The girls had smeared blue play dough into the carpet and I had fussed and he had found a solution. He took the red play dough and smeared in on top, covered up the blue.

I had laughed and hugged his sweet body close and decided to leave the play dough just like that, hero style.

Now on my knees, I was face to face with that play dough as I prayed the verses for the very first time.

I’ve never sensed a greater “Yes!” from the heavens as that day when I prayed those scriptures. I knew the affirmation of God.

And when I returned to the states and walked the ladies bible study group through the verses, we all felt the “YES!”   It was a powerful time, a sweet time, a glimpse of heaven.

We had all stilled our hearts and closed our eyes and imagined the scene, the birthplace of God’s love for us:

There’s God in Heaven. Before the foundation of the world.

Before the earth existed and before the first man was created and before there was a twinkling in the skies.

Just God.

And He’s there, pacing among the men and women, boys and girls, the thoughts and plans of His heart before yet one of them was.

He’s walking back and forth, to and fro. Then He reaches you.

He pauses.

He turns.

And He stretches out His hand.

He touches and He begins to speak…

“I bestow upon you LIFE! I grant you full freedom and liberty in My Son Jesus Christ. I speak over your life victory, fullness, and give you the title “overcomer.”

 

“To you, I give the keys to the kingdom of heaven.

 

“I decree that no weapon formed against you will prosper.

 

“I give you full access to the throne of grace.

 

“I call you by a new name. I grant you forgiveness. I call you holy.

 

“You are set apart, precious, special.

 

“I delight over you.

 

“You are sealed and protected forever.

 

“Greater is the One who is in you than he who is in the world.

 

“I grant you everything you need to live godly in Christ Jesus.

 

“I seal you with My Spirit, who will spring up in you like wells of living water and produce love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, and self control.

 

“You are My Beloved. Nothing will ever seperate you from My love.

 

“I am Yours and you are Mine. Forever.”

And the tears flow and the hearts are soft and we feel the presence of Love God.

As I did that morning on play dough carpet.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed ~ eulogeo ~ us with every spiritual blessing in the HEAVENLY PLACES in Christ, just as He chose us in Him BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD…” Ephesians 1:3

“How is it that you are so crazy about me?” I ask him.

I marvel at the love of a man for a woman. He could have anyone he wanted, but he wants me.

“You’re my bride!” He exclaims. “Any man who isn’t crazy about his bride has one of two problems: He either married the wrong woman or he isn’t right with God.”

We laugh a happy laugh that we married “right” and I fall in love again with his uncomplicated outlook, his straight forward and un-reserved passion that doesn’t get tangled up in all of life’s “what if’s.” To him, a man loves his woman wild and there’s something wrong if he doesn’t.

I still wonder at this kind of love when I arrive at church and the service begins~ I’m alone this morning, my Wild husband insisted on being the one to stay home with the sick children. I settle into my seat and hear again of the Savior who took on flesh, indwelt a body marked for death, because of crazy love for me.

I marvel still, trying to grasp it.

Then. I hear of Dr. Orlando, a man from Chicago who was in a car accident one night while with his wife. He was uninjured but his wife was severely hurt and needed an immediate skin graft in order to prevent infection.

When they arrived at the hospital, there was no skin donor available, so Dr. Orlando of course volunteered his own skin.

When they got to the OR however, there was no doctor available to do the procedure…but him.

So he prepared for surgery, took the scalpel, and with no anesthesia for himself, took graft after graft of his own skin to heal his wife’s injuries.

As his skin peeled and his blood flowed, the nurses and staff assisting him in the OR wept…but Dr. Orlando could not afford tears for his own pain. His agenda was his wife.

Steadily he worked until the procedure was done and everything had been supplied for his wife who desperately needed help.

Why would somebody do that?

Because it’s the way a man loves his woman.

And why would God peel back the glory of heaven and put on the skin of a man? Because of love, the love of God-man for His bride. For didn’t He take on skin so that He could give it up for the healing of His bride? And didn’t it “please the Father to bruise him?” And didn’t He, for the joy set before, endure the cross and despise the shame and reach down and peel back the flesh?

And isn’t it by His own stripes and wounds that I am healed from the curse and consequence of sin?

He went to the uttermost, all the way, loved to the very end, until He was able to say “It is finished” and only then did He bow His head and give up His spirit.

So I could be helped. Healed.

Redeemed. Salvaged. Restored.

LOVED.

The Lamb, slain before the foundation of the world, was given out of love…for me. For you. For us, His bride.

“How can God be so crazy about me?” I wonder.

Then it hits me. This question assumes His love is somehow associated with my worthiness. But just as my husband’s love is no credit to me but to him…he is no boy with immature feelings…he is no half-man who loves for self-profit…he is a man who has moved beyond childishness, who knows how to love another and does it well…

So it is with God.

God’s love for us was never intended to be to our credit, but His. This wild, heart thumping love that pushes to the most drastic of measures is a reflection of the Giver, not the taker.

He is God and there is none like Him.

He loves lavish. He loves tender. He loves softly, madly. He woos and whispers. He sings and dances. He hides expressions of His love throughout our days for us to discover. He pursues and beckons, He invites and waits.

He is God and there is none that loves like Him and it is impossible for anything to separate us from His love.

His love is a credit to His God-ness and I would be a fool to persist in trying to understand why He loves someone like me.

So I’ll just believe it. Embrace it. Tell Him “YES!”

I’ll delight in waking up to His warmth each day, in finding and opening His daily gifts.

And I’ll whisper to Him, “You love me so well. Can we do that again? I think I’m learning how to love You back…Shall we practice some more?”

I’ll love Him because He first loved me. Together, we’ll dance the dance of Lovers.

{Repost from the archives}

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