I usually try very hard to avoid dealing with and discussing politics.
They are certainly NOT my area of expertise, although I do not claim to be an expert in any area really.
Therefore, allow me to preface this post with this statement.
I am not the most qualified to address this issue. I am actually probably fairly ignorant in regards to the government decisions and laws and rulings and such. I am also not as aware of political statements and agendas as I should probably be. But, I am also not looking to begin a debate.
I am looking to simply join in with this celebration of "love" and "freedom" sweeping across my nation. I too want to embrace the freedom that is my right as an American and express my own views and thoughts on these words we like to toss around and tag to everything.
Love.
Rights.
Freedom...
Today, June 26, 2015, America is celebrating "love." Today, America believes she is setting an example for the world to follow of what true love and true freedom is. Today America is celebrating "freedom" from "oppression" and "rights" and free speech.
Today my heart is aching.
Not because a law was passed that I don't necessarily agree with.
Not because I hate gay people or people who love someone else of the same sex.
No.
Today my heart is aching because we are celebrating ideals and words that we have not even begun to understand....or perhaps that we have forgotten and ignored the root of.
Today my heart is aching because we have wandered so far from the love that really matters and really brings freedom...the love that we should be clinging to and fighting for above all others. My heart aches to think that we are so desperate and in search of love, any love at all, because we have failed to recognize the ONE love that can actually change us and free us and sustain us. My heart aches today because we are so confused and deceived. We have been tricked and we are more entangled and less free than ever before. Today we said yes to more lies about love and we walked further away from the truth and the One who is longing to remind us what love really is and the true freedom that comes with it.
I understand that for most of the world, the Bible and Jesus have become irrelevant pieces of ancient history. They no longer matter and thus what I am saying will be quickly disregarded. But nonetheless, I must share.
I must share because this love that I speak of has forever changed me. This love is all encompassing. It meets me where I am, exactly where I am and it never ever leaves me. This love covers every offense and flaw and this love has carried me and given me life and light when all I could feel and see were death and darkness. This love for me is a love worth fighting for. This love is the love that really wins.
I know what I am writing is more than unpopular. I suppose that after today what I am writing is unconstitutional...or at least it will be read as such. But if today we truly celebrate all love and all freedom for all people, then shouldn't I also be allowed to fight for the love that matters most to me?
Before you write me off as a bigot or decide I am completely obsolete in my thinking and believing, please consider love in its purest and most original form. If you dislike my words and my thoughts, at least consider these.
Before there was love between a man and a man or a woman and a woman...
And even long before there was love between a man and a woman.
This love existed.
And this love formed the foundation for all others.
This love is the very foundation for life itself.
May we never forget this truth.
"And this is what will happen: When you, on your part, will obey these directives, keeping and following them, God, on his part, will keep the covenant of loyal love that he made with your ancestors: He will love you, he will bless you, he will increase you." -Deuteronomy 7:12-13
"And you, a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, Incredibly patient, with tons of love— you didn’t dump them. Yes, even when they cast a sculpted calf and said, “This is your god Who brought you out of Egypt,” and continued from bad to worse, You in your amazing compassion didn’t walk off and leave them in the desert. The Pillar of Cloud didn’t leave them; daily it continued to show them their route; The Pillar of Fire did the same by night, showed them the right way to go."
-Nehemiah 9
"God’s business is putting things right; he loves getting the lines straight, Setting us straight. Once we’re standing tall, we can look him straight in the eye."
-Psalm 11:7
"But me he caught—reached all the way from sky to sea; he pulled me out Of that ocean of hate, that enemy chaos, the void in which I was drowning. They hit me when I was down, but God stuck by me. He stood me up on a wide-open field; I stood there saved—surprised to be loved!"
-Psalm 18:16-19
"Your beauty and love chase after me every day of my life." -Psalm 23:6
"All you saints! Sing your hearts out to God! Thank him to his face! He gets angry once in a while, but across a lifetime there is only love. The nights of crying your eyes out give way to days of laughter." -Psalm 30:4-5
"God’s love is meteoric, his loyalty astronomic, His purpose titanic, his verdicts oceanic. Yet in his largeness nothing gets lost; Not a man, not a mouse, slips through the cracks." -Psalm 36:5-6
"Heart-shattered lives ready for love don’t for a moment escape God’s notice." -Psalm 51:17
"I’ll never quit telling the story of your love— how you built the cosmos and guaranteed everything in it. Your love has always been our lives’ foundation, your fidelity has been the roof over our world." -Psalm 89:2
"God is sheer mercy and grace; not easily angered, he’s rich in love. He doesn’t endlessly nag and scold, nor hold grudges forever. He doesn’t treat us as our sins deserve, nor pay us back in full for our wrongs. As high as heaven is over the earth, so strong is his loveto those who fear him. And as far as sunrise is from sunset, he has separated us from our sins. As parents feel for their children, God feels for those who fear him. He knows us inside and out, keeps in mind that we’re made of mud. Men and women don’t live very long; like wildflowers they spring up and blossom, But a storm snuffs them out just as quickly, leaving nothing to show they were here. God’s love, though, is ever and always, eternally present to all who fear him, Making everything right for them and their children as they follow his Covenant ways and remember to do whatever he said." -Psalm 103:7-18
"That’s how much you mean to me! That’s how much I love you! I’d sell off the whole world to get you back, trade the creation just for you." -Isaiah 43:4
"For even if the mountains walk away and the hills fall to pieces, My love won’t walk away from you, my covenant commitment of peace won’t fall apart.” The God who has compassion on you says so." -Isaiah 54:10
"God’s loyal love couldn’t have run out, his merciful love couldn’t have dried up. They’re created new every morning. How great your faithfulness! I’m sticking with God (I say it over and over). He’s all I’ve got left... Why? Because the Master won’t ever walk out and fail to return. If he works severely, he also works tenderly. His stockpiles of loyal love are immense. He takes no pleasure in making life hard, in throwing roadblocks in the way." -Lamentations 3
"But in our time something new has been added. What Moses and the prophets witnessed to all those years has happened. The God-setting-things-right that we read about has become Jesus-setting-things-right for us. And not only for us, but for everyone who believes in him. For there is no difference between us and them in this. Since we’ve compiled this long and sorry record as sinners (both us and them) and proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us, God did it for us. Out of sheer generosity he put us in right standing with himself. A pure gift. He got us out of the mess we’re in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ. God sacrificed Jesus on the altar of the world to clear that world of sin. Having faith in him sets us in the clear. God decided on this course of action in full view of the public—to set the world in the clear with himself through the sacrifice of Jesus, finally taking care of the sins he had so patiently endured. This is not only clear, but it’s now—this is current history! God sets things right. He also makes it possible for us to live in his rightness." -Romans 3
"Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn’t, and doesn’t, wait for us to get ready. He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready. And even if we hadn’t been so weak, we wouldn’t have known what to do anyway. We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice. But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him." -Romans 5
"This is how we’ve come to understand and experience love: Christ sacrificed his life for us. This is why we ought to live sacrificially for our fellow believers, and not just be out for ourselves. If you see some brother or sister in need and have the means to do something about it but turn a cold shoulder and do nothing, what happens to God’s love? It disappears. And you made it disappear." -1 John 3
"My beloved friends, let us continue to love each other since love comes from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and experiences a relationship with God. The person who refuses to love doesn’t know the first thing about God, because God is love—so you can’t know him if you don’t love. This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him. This is the kind of love we are talking about—not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they’ve done to our relationship with God." -1 John 4
Today I am celebrating the love of a lifetime. The love that has set me completely free. The only love I will ever need. The love I want the world to know.
When we come to know and accept and celebrate this love that is Christ Himself, love really does win.
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