I started on my wedding registry last week.
I’ve been putting it off because the idea of asking for things has always made me uncomfortable. I didn’t grow up making a wish list for my Mom at Christmastime. I never wrote letters to Santa. I still hate bothering people and asking for help even when I know that asking them would probably save me a lot of time and energy.
It’s funny, because I LOVE helping people. And I LOVE giving gifts. I love blessing people and surprising them and taking advantage of significant times in their life to let them know how much I love them.
But as much as I cherish and am grateful for the tradition of gift giving during major life events, such as getting married or having a baby,
it feels so strange now that its my turn.
I don’t know about you, but sometimes,
accepting generosity is difficult.
Sometimes, its hard,
just to let yourself be loved.
When I came to the Lord, I was 12 years old. I was at bible camp, sitting in the front row of a stuffy chapel while listening to the band play
“How Deep the Fathers Love for Us.”
Up until that point, I hadn’t really understood the love of God.
I thought it was something I had to work for. And I was very tired of the endless cycle of trying and failing and trying and failing.
Because you can’t work for Gods love.
You just have to accept it.
There aren’t many things like that in life.
You have to work to earn a paycheck.
You have to work to earn good grades.
You have to work to earn the respect and trust of others.
But you don’t have to work for Gods love.
It’s a gift.
Sometimes I need a reminder of that.
That God loves me.
And his love is free.
Because for the girl who has a hard time accepting the fact that people want to bless me as I start my married life, I have a hard time accepting that God loves me too.
“Yet this is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”-1 John 4:9-10
I don’t know who needs to hear this today, but God loves you.
Just you.
Not you when your hair is curled and your makeup is on and your clothes are coordinated. Not you when you’re being productive at your job and working overtime staying late. Not you when you’re exercising or juicing or bullet journaling or vacuuming.
He loves the you with no façade.
The you with nothing to offer.
The you with your broken pieces.
Nothing you’ve done, or ever will do, can keep you from Gods love.
“neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor heights nor depths, nor anything else in all creation.” -Romans 8:38
I don’t deserve gifts from anyone.
Yet as I continue to add dish rags and baking sheets and whisks and rolling pins to my wedding registry, I am reminded that people love me,
even though I don’t deserve it.
Earthly love is but a mere shadow however, to the heavenly love of God.
His love is real and true and everlasting.
It’s unconditional, unmistakable, and unimaginable.
And though you’ll never be able to earn it, all you have to do is accept it.
And let yourself be loved.
“Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!” -2 Corinthians 9:15
