The Love Bucket

The past few weeks have been a WHIRLWIND. Waiting to start my job...starting my job...and LOVING it. I have fallen in love with my job BECAUSE I am in love with Jesus. If the Jesus you have met in the faces of His disciples has been ANYTHING but pure, unconditional, life-changing, overwhelming bucket-fulls of lavish love and truth and grace and goodness and mercy, you haven't met the Jesus I have! God loves ugly. He changes lives. He can have you bawling then laughing then crying, then floating on a beautiful river of peace. He is real. He is powerful. He knows where YOU are! God's love doesn't exist to haunt you. It's there to latch on and NEVER let go. He loves us despite our rebellion and innermost thoughts. He loves us even when we HATE and DESPISE ourselves....when we look in the mirror and make mental lists that go something like "I'm ugly, I'm fat, I'm not smart...I try and no one cares...I'm not worthy of being liked, much less loved...." He sees the beauty in the midst of ashes.

Because I know Jesus, I daily encounter an extremely tangible, healing, powerful love. I don't have to analyze and rationalize God in my HEAD because I am experiencing Him in my HEART. My new job is the perfect example. I feel Jesus with me every minute. He is wrenching my heart like a piece of metal. There is an enormous overflow of love and compassion and empathy for my patients. Patients I don't even know, yet so deeply love...My patients need encounters with Jesus. They don't need encounters with stories and facts and supposed "truth." They need The Truth. They need encounters with love. Meeting, feeling, and experiencing the personification of love Himself. If we were able to heal ourselves, we wouldn't need Jesus. But we're all desperate for something bigger than ourselves. We have, I have, a supernatural God who is waiting to supernaturally love me into who I was meant to be. Every single day He restores a little more of the soul which I thought I lost forever. He is truly opening my eyes to my passion and allowing me to see the wretched path which once laid before me.

I can't tell people how I got this job without laying my life completely at the feet of Jesus. Two weeks ago my life was entirely different. Fourteen days ago, do you hear?! I had to surrender. I had to FIGHT for PEACE. Ironic, huh? But when I did, I found myself floating on an ocean of love and grace and the most overwhelming peace I've ever known. I'm still riding on that cloud.

So don't try to attempt anything yourself. You can't. We've all gotten too good, particularly myself, at faking it. We all deserve awards for painting on smiles and happy faces to fool even those we are closest to. Isn't this what is expected? NO! So don't hide in shame. Don't let thoughts of terrible things and things outside your control tear you down. Don't let the lies that you're not worthy win over the truth that is in front of you. Don't think that something you've done has ruined you for love. It hasn't. It can't. I see that every single day. God is grieved that the shameful parts of life keep us away from all we need: Him. He does NOT expect perfection. He couldn't possibly.