Crazy Love: Obsessed

So I was reading Francis Chan's "Crazy Love" today and I got to the chapter about what it looks like to be obsessed with Christ and a few things jumped out at me.

The first was this quote: "It is just this sort of love that is crazy to the world: true love, a kind found nowhere but through Christ."

And as I read that I realized the depth of that statement.  When you read in the Bible, there are countless examples of who God shows this undying, unchangeable, unmeasurable love for us.  The first is by sending his Son to die. 

This also makes me think of the book Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers. If you have not read this book, I am in no way suggesting it. It's rather...well, mature. But it's a fictional retelling of the story of Hosea.  And when I read this, not only was I reading about the passion that a man had for his harlot wife, but I was reading about the passion that God had for us. We give our hearts away to the little things of this world, constantly finding pleasure in things that will not ultimately satisfy us. And God never gives up on us, he persues us, loves us. Just like Michael pursued and loved Angel in Redeeming Love. We are, like the book of Hosea shows, harlets. We are filthy, unclean, and we are not whole. Not until we find redemption.

We are so unworthy of the love God gives us. But God takes pleasure in us. In all of us. He loves us through our imperfections and fears, and it is better than any love we could ever possibly imagine.  This kind of love looks crazy to the outside world, but to someone who has experienced this love, it is beatiful. It is something to be longed for, yearned for. And to know that God, the Creator of the universe, wants all of us...that is crazy. It's an absolutely crazy love.

The second thing that jumped out at me was this quote: "A person who is obsessed thinks about Heaven frequently. Obsessed people orient their lives around eternity; they are not fixed only on what is here in front of them." 

That seemed so beautiful to me. To have the kind of obsession, that kind of crazy love for God so that all you can think about is spending an eternity with him.  But it not only means we are focused on our own eternity. At least, that's not the way I see it. To me, that says that we should be so obsessed and head-over-heals for our Savior that we want everyone else to experience this crazy and insane love he has for us. We should be so in love with Christ that we want to share that love with everyone around us.

Think about how beautiful life would be if that's how everyone lived. Sharing the truth about God's relentless and crazy love with everyone around them, everyone obsessing over their Creator, their Father, their Lover.

That's crazy.

I was flipping through my bible in church Sunday when I came across this verse. Psalm 116:15, "Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints."  It was circled in a turqouise pen, which meant one thing: I had found and circled that verse shortly after Virginia died. I was thinking about why I would have circled it when I thought about what a saint was. 
.
Dictionary.com defines saint as this:
1. any of certain persons of exceptional holiness of life
OR
2. a person of great holiness, virtue, or benevolence

I remembered that I read this verse and thought of Virginia because she lived a life of great holiness.  She lived a life worth copying, and she lived a life glorifying to her Savior. I loved reading this verse and thinking of Virginia as "precious in the sight of the Lord" because it reminded me that even though here we are grieving, God is being glorified and delighted by his creation in the perfected form in which she was meant to be.

Smile Again

I sit here thinking about all the times we had

All our laughter and tears and memories

Now those are all I have

I still see you in the back of my mind

And I still cry for you all the time

~Chorus~

Sometimes it feels like the end of everything 

And the weight of the world is crashing down on me

Normal no longer feels as it should be

And I know that where you are, you're smiling

One day I'll see your face again

And I'll be able to smile again

For now I know I have to live with all this pain

And I have to fight against it for so many years

Many sleepless nights of crying my grief away

Why did this have to be you? Why did you have to like this?

~Chorus~

Now we can all stay strong together

Having all these things to remind us of you

It's been all this time and we're still crying

We need to see your smile again

~Chorus~

These memories of you have me smiling again

Here's another song for Virginia. Enjoy :)

And Here Comes the 18th

So it's April 18.

Now for some people that may not be a big deal. For some people it may be a birthday or wedding anniversary. What is it for me? Well it tells me that it has been seven months since Virginia died. 

Now I know that I'm not the only one who stops and thinks about her more than usual on the 18th of every month.  It always seems to be the hardest for me emotionally on the 18th and 19th.  One thing I've started doing ever since she died is this: instead of counting the exact number of days and saying, "It's been this many days since I saw her last" I say "I'm one day closer to seeing not only heaven and my Savior, but also Virginia. I'm one day closer."  And it may seem strange to you that I do that.  But it helps me remember that this isn't the end. Life continues on after death and it's far better than life now. Not only do we get to spend the rest of eternity with our Creator, but our bodies are perfected and there is no more pain, sorrow, and suffering.  So yeah, I tell myself I'm a day closer because it brings me joy and hope to know that there is something better waiting for me.

So even though I always get really sad on the 18th, it also reminds me that it can only get better from this point.

Everyday we are one day closer, and for all we know, everyday could be our last day. So let's make it count. Life is a vapor. Don't waste it.

"Lead me to the Cross"

So I've seen a lot of death happen within the past year and a half. More than I would have liked too.


Cole Ellis, Hannah Ridling, Virginia Jacks, Mrs. Tricia, and Mr. Hopson. 


I personally only knew Virginia and Tricia, but from what I hear, the other three were amazing people.  Death has been making me think a lot about how short life can be. It isn't really even our life.  We don't know when our last day could be: it could be tomorrow, it could be next year, it could be that we die of old age. None of us really know.


Death also makes me think about what I'm doing with my life. If I'm not garunteed tomorrow, then shouldn't I live today as if it was my last? Yes. But how do I do that?


Well, one way is I can give my life away to others. It's not really mine anyway, not truly. We don't have control over when we come into this world or when we leave it. We should devote ourselves to serving and blessing others (which isn't easy, of course.)  This also makes me think about what my mind is set on right now. Is it set on things of the flesh or things of the Spirit?  We should hunger for holiness. It must be an active pursuit. 1 Timothy 4:7 says, "Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives’ tales; rather, train yourself to be godly." We are called by Christ to be godly.  There are two definitions of godly. One is this: "conforming to the laws and wishes of God; devout; pious."  This is a daily struggle a lot of Christians have. Can people look at our lives and KNOW that there is something different about us? Can they see that we have something they don't have? Are we lifting His name on high or are we dragging it through the mud?


We are called to hate our sin. "We should hate what put our Savior on the cross!" -Adam Coppock.  We should remember that every little sin we do, whether it's gossip, slander, lying, stealing, whatever...we should remember that it was THAT sin that sent Christ to the cross to die. How convicting!


We shouldn't fear death. If we are believers in Christ, then we should know that for us, it can only get BETTER.  When we die, we go to heaven and our bodies are perfected. We shouldn't fear death and we should long for heaven. After all, that should be where our treasures are stored up anyway, right?


Heaven=Jesus for an Eternity. Sounds pretty awesome to me!