the unlovables

How many people do you really love?  Family, friends, significant others, children?  And when I say "love," I don't just mean in the general sense of the word, like we love our neighbors and all God's children.  I'm talking about Love, with a capital L.  The kind of love that compels us to go out of our way to be for them.  The kind of love that causes our own hearts to break if theirs are breaking.  The kind of love that would suffer a devastating blow if we were to lose them.  The kind of love that causes you to look for them in a crowd.  The kind of love that makes your face light up with joy when you finally find them.

There are so many people that I love in that way!  And the more I get to know God, the more I learn to love more of His children with a heartfelt, never-ending kind of love.  But right now I'm talking about those that you adore.

How many people do you absolutely adore?

And do they adore you back?

Most people agree that if someone doesn't love you back, you should just let them go and take your heart to where the love will be returned.

But that's not how Jesus rolls.  He loves us, not because we return His love.  He loves and adores us because we are worthy to be loved and we are adorable.  

He is so devoted to us, so committed to being right there for us, just in case we ever need Him.  He absolutely adores us because He knows who we are inside.  He knows everything about us and recognizes His spirit in us and everything we are capable of.  And He thinks we're amazing.  And He thinks we're valuable.  And He wants nothing more than an audience with us to just be with us.  Just to be near us.  Just to talk to us.  Just to relish in the joy of our presence.  That's how much He loves us.

We are so fortunate to be loved like that.  But are we capable of loving others in that same way?  Would we adore and cherish people who reject our dedicated desire to love them?  I'll be honest, probably not.  Because our love for others is often determined by the way they respond to us or treat us, rather than in the beautiful, eternal innate value of each human being.

But what if....


What if we loved them because of how God sees them?  What if when they mistreated us or turned away from us we said, "Hey you, guess what?  I love you.  I don't care what you think of me; that has zero bearing on my devotion to you.  You are worthy.  You are amazing.  And I will always love you because you are worth it."

Crazy thought, huh?  Almost as if we'd be embodying a sacred characteristic of our heavenly Savior.

If Jesus can desperately love all of His children (even the ones who don't allow Him entrance into their hearts, even those that reject Him and spit on Him and slander His name) then I can love the unlovables in my own life, right?

Lord, grant me the grace with which to extend that level of love to all those that have made it their mission to hurt me.

I can't even wrap my head around it, to be honest with you.  I can't even visualize it.  But I want the freedom to love people like God does.  I've had some practice, recently, and I think I'm ready to try extending the boundaries of that kind of love to those who need God's grace in their lives as much as I do. And in that way, I can honor my Savior as I extend His love to those who He has deemed worthy.  And who knows, maybe in the end, I will see what God finds so adorable about them too.