Neighbors

My mom and I were recently talking and I was (a little pridefully, if I am honest) correcting her misquoting of a verse: Matthew 22:39.  Mom had believed it said "Love your neighbor as I (being God/Jesus) have loved you." I corrected her with the actual scripture which is "Love your neighbor as you love yourself."  The next day while driving to work, I was going over the conversation in my head. I was thinking about how cool I was to be able to correct scripture to my mom of all people! Then it hit me. My mom was not so off base.  Her thought process actually made more sense then what the actual verse read as.

Why wouldn't Jesus have commanded us to love our neighbors as He has loved us? Isn't that the greatest love you can have?

Mulling over this question, I started to think about how people treat each other. I thought about how people who treat others like crap usually feel about themselves. Bingo! That is our problem: we do not understand how much God loves us, how much He wants for us to love and value ourselves, so we cannot love our neighbors the way God has called us. This realization brought so many thoughts over me. We are all doing the best we can to love on each other, but it is so hard to do when we cannot find the love within ourselves to put out. We are a broken people who insist on carrying burdens too big for us. This is why we need to lean on God.

As I recall, Jesus was not a doormat.  He rested when He needed, He prayed when He needed and He served when God told him. Jesus knew He was no good to anyone else if He did not know His limits, His value and His abilities through God.  By loving ourselves how God loves us, we will in turn love our neighbor as we love ourselves, which is loving each other how God loves us. What a beautiful thing.

Farts

On beautiful sunny days my mom, dad and I used to "go for a drive". Sometimes we would drive to the mountain, or the apple orchards, just somewhere beautiful. We'd be driving along, mom blasting Celine Dion or Fleetwood Mac and all of us just taking in Oregon at its best. Then my dad would fart. It would be the most foul, rank, rotten egg bomb! Mom and I would scream, dad would laugh all while mom struggled for a ciggarette and lighter to cover the smell.

I feel like I have been breathing farts. I know that sounds gross, but seriously think about what a distraction that is. Here you can be in a beautiful moment and it is ruined, ruined! I have been trying to focus on the beauty and truth around me, but it's so hard when you can't breath.  What's sad is that after time, you get used to the "smell." You may no longer be completely distracted, but it's still there, poisoning the air, ruining the moment.

I have always believed things about myself that have held me back from fully enjoying relationships, I had farts hanging around, if you will. I would be in a moment with someone bearing our souls, or sharing something joyful or beautiful and I wouldn't be getting it all. There would be this sour smell telling me "you're still not good enough," or "they really don't care, you're just the only option they had." Then up would go my walls, like covering my mouth and nose with the collar of my shirt. I don't want to talk, I don't want to breath, I don't want to love, I don't want to trust.

Someone rolled down the window. Someone did something so I could not only go back to seeing the beauty I saw before, but now I could breath and taste the beauty. Someone who didn't want me to miss a moment.

I think we often forget how God loves us. We think- yeah yeah, He loves me, died for me and forgives me.- It gets old. We live in the "what" and forget the "why". Why did Jesus die? So we could go to heaven and party? I don't think so. Will that happen? Yes. However, I have learned that there is so much more. He did it to be close to me. He did it because He loves all of who I am. He did it so that I can live a life chasing after His heart and feeling Him live in me. He did it so I can live in beauty without distraction of sin. Guiltless, without insecurity, without doubt and fee from the fog that sin creates in our surroundings. He did it so I can submit to my neighbor, so I can love freely. He did it so I can LIVE. I can experience Heaven on earth, I can experience life and relationships and breath and adrenaline and madness and joy!

I'm so ready for life. I am so ready to breathe.