He loves me for me.

I spent the morning with Wilder and was filled to the brim, overflowing with love for him, pleasure & delight over him.  As he sat on my lap, i clapped his hands, kissed his feet, and watched as his eyes began to squint and that fully gummed, toothless smile took over, joy filling all he was.  His smile undoes me.  As i sat there with tears filling my eyes, I thought how he does nothing for me, he just is.  He doesn’t perform, he doesn’t offer help or advice, he doesn’t demand m attention, and I am extremely proud of him.  Even in the moments where he won’t stop screaming & i can so easily get frustrated and overwhelmed… even in those moments, there is not one second that I wouldn’t lay down all I am for this precious three month old.

He looks into my eyes & I am undone.  I love watching him discover the world, get excited by the wind & the colors of nature.  I love seeing him learn about his hands and experience things for the very first time.

Oh, and how much more the Father is head over heels undone by me.  He longs to just BE with me.  Not because of what I can do for Him, or because of what I can offer.  But because I am ME and I am what He has dreamt of.  I am His dream come to life.

He loves me.

In my victories.

In my failures.

His love is not wavered by my doing or lack of it.

He sees ME for how He created me and He is enthralled.

I lock eyes with Him & he is speechless, filled to the brim & overflowing with joy & delight.

I can not do anything to gain an increase of affection.

I could not do anything for His affection to decrease.

And my living a life laid before Him comes from this place and not for this place.

There is not place like this place.  Freedom & Truth reign here.  Love abounds here & shatters every lie, it crushes all fear & shouts perfectly making all things new, making all things like HIM.

In this season of Marriage i am learning that when Shea is loved & comes alive, my hearts response is joy joy joy.  I love seeing him find true abundant life.  I come alive watching him come alive.  And it mirrors the Kingdom.  When God receives the glory, when I see Him getting the honor & praise He is due… When i see people coming into alignment with Truth & walking in freedom, receiving the gifts the Father has given, something comes alive in me like never before.  I get filled with joy, abundant life, and exhilaration when I see the Kingdom of God invade the earth by coming alive & transforming the broken & empty hearts into whole Children of God who know their dad & know they’re loved.

This place of knowing whose we are is what the world is missing.  We all long to belong.  And we search for it in so many things.  We fill that longing with work, additions, parties, family, friends, shopping, sarcasm, violence, anxiety, fear, doing good things, going to church, and bible studies.  We fight to prove ourselves worthy of love, worthy of being really seen.  But we perform our way to this & in the process we put up walls, doing exactly what we thing makes us “loved”, but for someone we are not.  And we hide behind these masks because “fall love is better than no love”, right?

We try to get out but we fail & go back inside our cages that make us feel safe, in control, and free.  The cage is a facade of freedom & safety.

And what we don’t allow ourselves to believe, but is the only ay to freedom, is that before you ever did, you were. And that’s what Chris laid His life down for, who you ARE.

Not what you can do.

He saw me, He saw you without walls.

He saw you without a lens.

He sees me pure, just me.

And that is who He loves, who He daily pursues.

I am loved, I am seen, I am fought for, I am pure, I am free.

I am not forgotten, I am not lacking, I am not bound, dirty or alone.

Truth sets us free.

And sometimes we have to speak this over our hearts until we believe it, until it becomes our reality.

Truth is a person.  He is alive & searching the earth for broken hearts that are hungry for truth, for lives in shambles ready for change.

We don’t have to get clean to come to His table.  When we arrive, he has a place with our name on it, and it’s His joy to wash us, to make us whole.  He doesn’t wash our dirty rags, but gives us fresh, never-worn, pure white robes.  He adorns us with His love.

He call us son; daughter.

He washes our feet & pours his most expensive possession out for us.

He withholds no good thing.

He loves without reserve.

He pours out without boundaries.

He is the perfect Father.

He is the good Shepherd.

He is the faithful Friend.

He has already won our battles.  He is the VICTORIOUS KING.

And when we say “yes” to Him… Each day waking up, no matter the success or failure of the day before, we give him a fresh YES to come and walk WITH us, we get to walk in the victory with Him.

But without Him we walk into a battle with no weapons or armor.

He give us Kingdom armor…

The breastplate of Righteousness.

The belt of Truth.

The helmet of Salvation.

The sword of the Spirit.

And shoes of Peace.

Father,

I ask right now that your Holy Spirit would come over every heart that stumbles upon these words, that you would awaken fresh hope and new eyes to see the way that you see.  I pray that all fear, shame, condemnation, anxiety, hopelessness, and everything that contradicts who you are, would be washed away under the blood of Jesus and that you would fill to overflowing the empty places within our hearts.  You are a good Father, you don’t ever disappoint or give false hope, but you give everlasting peace & hope that doesn’t disappoint… come and reveal your good nature, your faithfulness to our lives.  Thank you for the way you never give up but continually pursue us, inviting us deeper and deeper into your courts.  Give us the courage and bravery to say “yes” in the moments where things seem impossible, give us strength to dream again, hope to believe again, faith to trust again and reveal your Truth to us even greater today, Truth that sets us free.

In Jesus’ name, Amen.