For as long as I can remember, God has been at the center of my life. My earliest memories are the stories my parents told me about my adoption and how God saw me in my birth mom’s tummy, and knew she couldn’t care for me, and saw that my parents couldn’t conceive, so God made sure to put us together. God gave me dimples just like my mom’s so she would know i was hers when she saw me.
From the very beginning of my story, there is the undercurrent of faith, of the belief in something bigger than myself- and even deeper and bigger than faith- there has been an undercurrent of love. My birth, adoption, the way i was conceived, none of that was ever presented to me in a way that was shameful- i was never made to feel less than. I mean sure, there were kids along the way that would make jabs about me being given up, but somewhere along the line, i understood that i had been chosen. I had been chosen by God, by my parents, and by this one, wonderous life.
Have I had questions? Sure.
Have I had moments of frustration in not knowing why I have curly hair, or why my body is predisposed to be the way it is? Do I sometimes wish I could look into the face of another and see my traits mirrored back, sure.
But the reality for me is that from the very beginning, I have known how truly and deeply loved I am.
The scary part is that I have spent the majority of my life testing the limits of that love. Not in ways that are always noticable- but like I have tried to find weak spots in an impermeable boundary. Ways that could make me say “ha! See, I’m not really worthy of being loved and chosen! I found a spot where the love doesn’t apply!” It is like trying to find a spot where an electric fence stops working…each time you think you have found a weak spot, you are reminded that the fence is still alive with electricity. Again and again, I am confronted by Love. Again and again, in my brokenness and my own inability to receive it, Love has pursued me, stayed with me, and up held me. Again, and again, and again.
Growing up one of my favorite passages in the Bible talks about waiting on the Lord, and running and not growing weary. But, if you’re like me, running from Love, from God, has left me very weary, and exhausted. I have reached a point where it feels like I have reached the end of my running. I don’t want to test the boundaries anymore, I don’t want to search for a weak spot. I want to rest in the love that has been freely been offered to me. I have hit a point in life where everything I have worked for, everything I have been compelled to do out of duty, or obligation, or because I “should”…none of it makes sense anymore. Many things have fallen into place in ways that are better than I could have ever dreamed, but as I look at my life today, nothing of it is what I planned or imagined. As one who always strives to keep it together, it feels as though everything has fallen apart. I cannot tell you how liberating that is to type. And even more, what amazes me is that the peace I feel.
There is a lot that I am grieving, in real and tangible ways, but i know the grief will pass. I am anxious about taking care of my responsibilities (adulting, boo)…but for the first time in my life, I am looking Love square in the face and saying “alright, i surrender. let’s do this.”
I don’t know what is ahead, but I know it is going to be greater than what I had planned for my life. I am ready to pursue life with Love, living more authentically and abundantly. And I have clarity, amidst the chaos and mess. I have clarity that my call, my mission, my purpose, is to help others know that they are loved- deeply, without question- by God their Creator, and learn with them how to live in that Love instead of trying to out run it.
We can’t outrun Love- we belong to Love, and Love is at the core of who we are. What I have come to understand is that Love has been promised to me because I am, just like each of you, a beloved child of God- fearfully and wonderfully made in Love.
pjp
Where water meets land- connection. 