His Kind of Love

Guest post by Lisa Easterling

Recently God used a friend to grip my heart and spur me to action. She didn’t even know it, but for me it was unmistakable. After we hung up I pondered the Holy Spirit’s nudge and reached down deep to a place I had sealed shut months before. A place I had never wanted to visit again.

Sometimes we have to rip open old wounds to heal shattered places.

In faith, I heeded His prompting and reached out. Hands shaking, I waited. Her words came back: “Can we just start over?”

I cried the yes in droplets over my keyboard and blessed my sweet God for His redemption that sometimes comes through unwitting messengers. I blessed Him again for her openness to His words.

In that moment, it no longer mattered whether the whole thing made sense or not or who was right and who was wrong and why it all happened.

Because love…love always makes sense.

It redeems what we’ve lost, repairs what was broken, mends hearts separated by misunderstanding.

Only sometimes we go after truth at the cost of feelings, and although truth is a worthy treasure, sometimes in this life answers aren’t so black and white. Sometimes, because we are fallible humans, what really happened isn’t so clear.

Sometimes we really don’t know. And I think maybe there are times when that needs to be enough. When we just leave it all in God’s lap and let Him sort out the past while we look ahead and build the present—this lovely gift of relationship—in the here and now.

Love doesn’t know stop signs. Sometimes we falter, and sometimes we get caught up in pain and confusion, but love is always waiting. Love never fails.

It’s us. We are the ones who fail one another. We neglect, we say too much or too little, we misunderstand, we make assumptions. We forget to believe the best in one another and life gets crazy and in the middle of it all we lose what was really important. We lose us.

I do know this: It is worth every bit of faith and courage it takes to reach out across the chasm to close the rip. We swallow hard, extend a trembling hand, and pray.

We trust that a hand will reach back, if not now then sometime, and what was torn will be made whole again by the one who wore the holes pounded deep for all of us imperfect ones who tear at His heart every day. We cry out for His sweet grace that fills our empty places, and feel His hand once wounded reaching back to heal.

We wrap our fingers tight with His and breathe our thanks and try harder next time to never let the hurt happen in the first place. We live a little kinder and more understanding and less careless. We live with an intentional gratitude that reminds us with every breath that this life with all its wildness is a gift we cannot take for granted—at least not without paying dearly.

We cling to the Love that never leaves us and we pray hoping that because we are His, by His grace ours will hold fast, too.

Because His kind of love never lets goodbye mean forever.

And you, dear friend? Is there a place you’ve closed that maybe by His power you could reopen and heal?

 

Lisa Easterling is a lifelong resident of the Tampa Bay area alongside her husband Steve, five children, and two grandchildren. A pioneer for home education in Florida, she has served in various areas of Christian ministry for the past 32 years. Lisa is a lifelong writer and creative writing coach, currently serving as Associate Editor for Write Where It Hurts. Her favorite place to write is near the ocean, and she particularly loves helping others to fall in love with words. Lisa blogs at www.writepraylove.com and can be reached by emailingblue@lisaeasterling.com.

 

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