Mercy.

Think of all the people you like the least....

If I could guess, I would assume that they're often difficult, frustrating, know-it-all, insecure, controlling, uncaring, mean, fake, jealousy-inducing, and invasive people....
They are put in our lives for a reason...

...and as frustrating as it is to figure it out...
I think I've got it.
{not just me though... this is something God has been teaching me over these past two weeks}

They are opportunities given to us by God.

These people are wonderful opportunities for us to show GRACE

...to show LOVE...

...to show MERCY...

mercy: n- compassion or forgiveness shown toward someone whom it is within one's power to punish or harm

These beautiful, God-created people are opportunities for us to bring the kingdom of God to earth...

Let me not be so wrapped up in my own problems to not recognize the way I'm hurting someone else.

Let me see the brokenness in hearts and lives.

Let me not be so blind to the effects of my words and actions.

Let me see through the facade of happiness that people put on, and let me reach out in Love.

{[capital] el-oh-vee-ee? yes. Love. personified.  Why? because Love personified means Jesus.}

Let me reach out in Jesus. 

Oh God let me show Love.

Let my heart be led by mercy.

Let me be a friend of sinners.

Let me reach out with open hands, instead of pointing fingers.

Let me be a friend of the people I deem unworthy.

Because to God, I'm unworthy.

Thank you God, for having more mercy than I could ever dream to show others.

Thank you for answering my prayers.

Thank you for giving me opportunities to walk in obedience to your still small word.

Thank you for putting people in my life that I can show mercy to.

Thank you for opening my eyes to my own unworthiness.

Help me to Love with an unconditional Love.

Help me see people through your eyes.

Break my heart for what breaks yours.

Love, 

  

Self Disclosure...But Love

Last year I learned about self-disclosure in my Interpersonal Communication class.

Self-disclosure is basically the act of telling people more about yourself... usually it's in a way that invests in the relationship, showing the other person that you care enough to tell them.  

When I first learned about it I kind of dismissed it with a flutter of my fingers, because I know that I can self disclose... sometimes way more than people want to hear.

I'm a talker!!

Some people hate leaving voice messages or videos on other people's facebook walls, but i love it!!!

It's a place for me to talk... respond... and process, all by myself.

Am I sounding crazy yet?? 

sorry.

So anyway. I'm the queen of self-disclosure, right? I'll tell anybody anything!!! {mostly anything}

and I'll talk to them about almost anything!!

absolutely no problem.

except that I was wrong.

Self-disclosure isn't just telling other people different facts about your life.  

It's opening up your heart, cracking the hard-candy shell, and releasing the gooey fruity inside that no one ever gets to see.  

It's cracking through the coconut shell outside and letting out the juice that doesn't really taste that good, but it's super good for you...

It's breaking through the rock on the outside, finding the rock that has become so compressed over time, that it's turned into either gems... or dust...

Self-disclosure is about telling someone the things you don't want to tell anyone, because if they knew, they wouldn't like you anymore.  {or so says your irrational mind. go away mind. go get sick.}

Self-disclosure is about vulnerability, it's about the unknown, and the shadowy areas of the heart... the things you're unsure of, the things you're ashamed of.  

But love.

"But Love" is a phrase that completely encompasses the Gospel...

We were sinners, BUT LOVE came and rescued us.

We deserved hell, BUT LOVE took our place.

We are unworthy, BUT LOVE accepts our sacrifices.

We are lost, BUT LOVE has sought us, and desires our hearts....

Love teaches people how to love.

Love teaches people how to seek others, and relationships with them...

This love has been shown to me not only by my CREATOR, but by my boyfriend as well...

As sinful people, we hide from what will shed light on our insecurities.

That special person should be one who will gently take your hand, constantly speaking words of encouragement, and lead you into the light, where he then pours out HIS heart, revealing HIS inadequacies, and draws you into a place of security, stability, and love...where you're safe.

Thank God for love.

 

That's all C.S. has to say about that.

"Most people, if they had really learned to look into their own hearts, would know that they do want, and want acutely, something that cannot be had in this world. There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never quite keep their promise. 

"We do not want to merely "see" beauty--though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words--to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it. 

"At present we are on the outside... the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the pleasures we see. But all the pages of the New Testament are rustling with the rumor that it will not always be so. Someday, God willing, we shall get "in"... We will put on glory... that greater glory of which Nature is only the first sketch. 

"The Christian says, 'Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists.' A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. 

"If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only... to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, echo, or mirage. 

"I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to the other country and to help others do the same."

- C.S. Lewis

Love, 

 

Some nights...

Some nights you go to bed upset... After a conversation that just left your feelings all paper-cut up. And he texts you the next day asking if you're ok, which you are, but at the same time you're not.

Then maybe the next night you'll be totally over whatever made you upset the night before, but of course {since you're super emotional and annoying because you're pmsing} you find some way to get offended again... So you say that you're just going to go to bed now, and goodnight. But then that isn't good enough for him. He'll ask if you're ok, and your words will say yes, but your voice says no...

Then he'll ask you to Skype for "a minute", so you'll grudgingly say ok fine. Then you get on Skype, talk for a while, and feel so bad at being a brat, and finding SUCH a deep and perfect expression of love in his words and face, that you'll just start silently crying, which just makes him cry, and you fall in love with him all over again.....

So then you're both just crying messes because you just miss each other SO, and you both know that a hug would fix your own feelings in an instant, but that just can't happen {you're more in shock from actually seeing him cry... i mean w.h.a.t?} and then you blow kisses at your screen and 15 minutes later shut your computer and just thank God that this loving man pursues your heart in the absolute best way...

You see? Even if the day brings you endless frustration and sadness, at the end of the day, the bottom line is, Love??

And the answer is always Yes.

On the other hand...

when the question is "Homework?"

the answer is always no....