As young women we long to be swept off our by a knight in shining armor. We have fairy-tail dreams that are all-too-often disapointed by the guys in our lives. But tonight I want to tell you the most beautiful Valentine's story ever.
Let me start by telling you about two necklaces I own. One is a large, beautiful crystal-cut heart necklace. The other is also a heart, this one of solid metal and inscribed with the words of John 15:13, "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends."
Like my crystal necklace, there are many ways we can strive to look beautiful on the outside and reflect a good image to the world around us, just like the facets on this necklace reflect beautiful colors and light. To look at most of us you might think that we “have it all together.” But if I take off my necklace and hold it away from light, we can see that all that beauty is just outward and that inside there is nothing there but plain glass. Sometime what we portray to the world is simply a disguise for the fragile emptiness we are feeling inside.
We all have different heartaches. Yours may be longing for someone to love or be loved by. Or trying to make your body look differently than it does in order to fill that void in you heart. At one time in my life my emptiness drove me to the point desperation and even contemplating suicide. No one could see that lonely emptiness inside, but I knew it was there. The heartache and grief consumed me every day and I felt abandoned by God because it seemed that He didn't even care.
But thankfully how I may "feel" about God doesn't dictate reality. Lamentations chapter 3 is a long book of heartache about all the things this author suffered. But hidden right in the midst of his complaints, he dramatically shifts gears for a few verses and boldly proclaims, "Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail." While I was busy feeling overlooked by Him, He had already been going out of His way to prove the opposite to me.
What is the value of something? It isn't really the cost of an item as much as it is what someone is really willing to pay. There are many things I don't buy because the price tag is higher than I feel the value to be. But God placed the ultimate value on me when He choose to pay the price of His son's life to prove His love for me! Many of us know the verse John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." God made this verse very personal to me when I realized that "God so long to call me His daughter that He allowed the death of His only biological son to pay the price of my adoption."
If you are feeling empty and fragile and wondering about God's love for you, He has proved it better than any knight in shining armor ever could. Remember the verse on my second necklace, John 15:13? "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." Just like this necklace is strong and solid and full of meaning, when I put my hope in God and trust Him at His word even when I don't "feel" Him there, He fills that empty place in my heart with hope.
and therefore I have hope:
Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness…
For men are not cast off
by the Lord forever.
Though he brings grief, he will show compassion,
so great is his unfailing love.“
-Lamentations3:21-23, 3:31-32 (NIV)
No comments:
Post a Comment