keep loving more...

Let it be Jesus, the first name that I call. Any name other than Jesus will ONLY return emptiness and void and more frustration and disappointment. I am learning this lesson on repeat in life. I am learning that He has created me for more and that I love because He first loved me. It isn’t arbitrary and it isn’t just because it is reciprocal. It is because He commanded and even if I don’t FEEL it, it is a calling and a purpose and there is great value behind loving well in His name. 

I have lost many friendships, I have watched some change vastly and there is pain in that. I don’t think I should be used but I do think I have been sent out with a heart that looks different than many or perhaps even most. I have a capacity to give and to pour into others that is genuinely just how He made me. Perhaps it is that He gifted me uniquely and distinctly for His plan to love generously and to just lay it all out for those in my life. My best is to run alongside others and to give them much of myself - sometimes that is beautiful and sometimes it is devastating. There are seasons of both. Sometimes after the wreckage there is a pause…a period of silence and then there is a clear recognition of His purpose in a friendship even if I couldn’t have seen it before. I have seen His hand so clearly in exuberant joy and tears I thought might never end. 

I think I am growing and becoming - I think I am learning to listen more, to lean into Him, to be refilled and refueled by Him so that I can give more to others. I know that I will be misunderstood by many in my life, but I also know He is with me and He is for me. Lord, draw me close to you and let me call on YOUR NAME in my time of need - let me not look to any friend for companionship or approval or recognition in this life. Let me know fully that YOU ALONE are the fulfillment of every purpose, hope and dream and from the wellspring of YOUR GOODNESS may love pour out and flood the lives of those you place in my path that I would spread your name and renown. Would I be a vessel of YOU Lord without hesitation and without fear and without holding back.