Love Story Day One

It's February and since the last days of December we have been reminded with red and pink hearts that soon we would be celebrating a day of love... Well a day that we are supposed to spoil that special someone with chocolates and stuffed bears, flowers and dipped strawberries, love notes and fancy candle lit dinners. From December on we may be either looking forward to the 14th of February with delight and fanciful day dreams or dread and irritation. How we look forward to that big V-Day probably has much to do with whom or whom-not we are to be spending it with. More often than not some V-Days have been more special and meaningful, just because whom we may have had the pleasure spending it with and how it was celebrated. I know that for myself personally Caleb and I are pretty low key when it comes to Valentines Day, mainly because we celebrate our anniversary shortly after and I much prefer all the discounted presents over the full price ANYTIME! However, as with most people looking back over the years the best Valentines days were the ones where something was pre-thought out. In every relationship there is room for the last minute, spur-of-the-moment gift and outing but the days that we truly look back and ponder are the ones when things were planed out, premeditated, purposeful and filled with thought. Not because the gifts are better that way, but because the meaning behind the gifts carry more weight. Even if it doesn't go as planned (because it normally doesn't) The thought truly does count!

I think about this and relate it not just to the times that Caleb has loved me well and had went out of his way to do something for me, but even more this year I am thinking about a God who loved me enough to plan a way for me to be close to Himself. I know it sounds cheesy and cliche but it is no less true. I think of a love that would put a plan in motion from the start of time that was meant to draw me to THE very Creator of time itself. I think of the love that would send the Son of God to Earth, away from streets of gold and into a manger. He didn't even wait until he could be born into a county hospital.  But seriously, the Son's love for the Father and The Father's love for me.... all thought out, all followed through, all perfect.

If ever to feel like Cinderella, like the whole story, it would have to be the moment we grasp the whole picture of such love. We weren't the type to be invited to a ball, and then once we get the chance we have all odds against us and would have to show up in rags, but the gift of The Holy Spirit acts as our Fairy God-Mother (in such a pail comparison, but just follow what I'm saying) allows for us to met The Prince of Peace in person and we dance and fall in love, and sometimes, like for me, we run from the ball more for the fear of Him seeing who we really are, and end up going back home to a place of no value in His love for us and we go back to rags. And then just like the prince in the story Jesus, The Prince, seeks us out. He finds us with dust and soot all over us, and He lifts us from the floor and brings us back to The Kingdom with Him. We are dressed in love by Him and we are taken to His Father with approval and without condemnation of where we've been and what we've done. We are lifted up from where we once were and loved so much more than we ever thought imaginable, and the best part is, is that it was planned! His love for us, His pursuit of us, His salvation for us... was all planned. We were thought about. I was thought about. I was loved, even when I wore rags of shame and guilt and lived a life of selfishness and so much ugliness. He loved me, He showed me what I could be and even when I ran, He chased me down, found me and LOVED ME!

You may not know what I am talking about. You may not know that kind of love from God or from anyone else for that matter and it is for you that I am praying tonight. I pray that you will know and experience that kind of love. It sounds so lame to relate the love of The King of Kings to a Cinderella love... because it is SO much more! But it is also that simple. If you are hurting for that kind of love, stop everything right this moment and whisper "Do You (God of the Universes) love me?" I promise an answer will come, it has been prepared for you, it is waiting to surprise you and sweep you off your feet. And even in your doubt and fear, that Love will never stop chasing you. Be willing to slip your feet into the glass slippers waiting for you. The one that was made just for you long before you even knew you could dance, and then let The God of the Universes show you just how much He loves you!