A Perfect Love

Valentines Day... probably my least favorite holiday of the year. If you want to see me roll my eyes 150+ times in one day, just come hang out with me on Valentines Day. I’m a Valentine Scrooge you might say. Lance loves it... I mean he loves the fact that I hate it. I will, however, never turn down chocolate even if it comes in a heart shaped container or pink wrapper. Chocolate is the only redeeming value of Valentines Day.

I’ve mentioned before how God has a sense of humor and he knows I like it when he’s funny. Well, last year on Valentines Day God made a funny. Just as I was rolling my eyes for the first time at all the hearts and flowers on my FB wall, I got an email from our adoption agency and upon opening it I was in love at first sight... on Valentines Day. On the day where normally I’m busy internally making fun of all the mushy love stuff, I was a complete puddle of mushy love stuff over the three faces before me. I’m telling you, he’s funny!

This year, while I’m still a Valentines Scrooge (confirmed by my rant to Lance on the phone yesterday about how dumb Valentines school parties are) we will be celebrating February 14th as our “Seen Ya Day!” (kind of like “Gotcha Day!” but not to be confused with the day in New York where high school seniors dress up and get special privileges... I realize those sound exactly the same). So, what better place for us to celebrate our love for our daughters than to attend the Empowered to Connect Conference in Birmingham! To say that I’m excited about this conference is a total understatement! Thursday cannot get here fast enough and I don’t care if roads are bad! We are going! I think this will be an amazing opportunity for Lance and I to further prepare ourselves for our girls to come home and also be alone for a couple of days. I am so stoked to be able to hear Karyn Purvis (the “child whisperer” as I call her) in person and fill up at least one notebook full of Godly wisdom!

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Empowered to Connect or the book The Connected Child, this is basically a conference about a particular type of parenting for children from hard places. We call this type of parenting “Trust Based Parenting” and the concept is that your main goal in all interaction with your children is connection, trust building and healing. We have begun learning and implementing these techniques with our boys. It is hard! It’s hard because it brings my selfishness to the surface. It’s hard because it doesn’t come naturally. It’s hard because it requires consistent WORK! 

Karyn Purvis is one of the authors of The Connected Child (The Trauma Mamma Bible). The book itself is not “Christian” but it certainly is based on biblical principles. Because of this, she actually wrote a bible study that coincides with the book called Created to Connect. I’ve gone through this study once earlier in our adoption process with a group of other moms, but I decided to go through it again by myself. I have been so encouraged and convicted by this study.

In yesterday’s devotion, I read about love and fear. 1 John 4: 18-19 says, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us.” Later in the day, I read a blog from Lifeline about discipline for adopted children and they quoted this verse, too. Coincidence? Nah. I thought this was so very timely. I have had a pretty rough couple of days with the boys, and these words really penetrated my heart. There is no fear in LOVE.

For most of my life, I thought that I had genuine love for God, but what I really had was fear. I was afraid of his punishment for my sin, so I did all the “Christian things” in order to be sure that I was “saved” from that punishment. Despite all my efforts, I had not been perfected in love and I was blind to this fact. But one day, God opened my eyes and I truly saw how much he loved me... how he had loved me all along, forever and always, even when I didn’t love him. I realized that he had relentlessly pursued me with his love and that perfect love cast out fear in my heart. Now THAT is a love story that I can get excited about this Valentines Day! Amen? 

What’s totally awesome about the Christian life is the fact that in every aspect of it we have the opportunity–and responsibility–to reflect the love of the Father. I believe this is especially true in marriage and parenting. When you think about your children and your spouse in the light of the gospel, everything changes. 

I’ve realized that I don’t want my children to obey me and do all the right things out of fear of punishment. I want them to respond out of love for me... love that flows willingly because of my love for them. I want my love for my children to visibly reflect in some small way how God loves me. I want love to cast out fear in my children’s lives. 

I believe in order to love my children in this way, I must truly seek to love them biblically. Love isn’t just a feeling and a smile. Love is the outpouring of yourself in many different ways. Let’s look at what 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 says about love:

love is patient

love is kind

love does not envy

love does not boast

love is not arrogant

love is not rude

love does not insist on its own way

love is not irritable

love is not resentful

love does not rejoice at wrongdoing

love rejoices with the truth

love bears all things

love believes all things

love hopes all things

love endures all things

love never ends

This is what perfect love looks like. Think about how this should translate into love for our children and our spouses? 

I admit this is an intimidating list when I lay it next to the list of all my shortcomings. There’s not a single one of these attributes that I could check off as having mastered. However, when I lay this list next to the cross, it matches perfectly. When I focus on God’s perfect love for me and then understand that I have been perfected in his love through the cross, my fear of failure is cast out, because perfect love casts out fear. That's just so  beautifully encouraging to me!

When my children are swinging like Tarzan from the last sliver of patience I have, I can look to the perfect love of God and reflect God's patience back to my boys. When rude and unkind words threaten to burst forth from my mouth, I can look to the perfect love of God and ask him to give me kindness. When I'm irritable and selfish, I can look to the perfect love of God as an example of how to lay down my life for my family. When I'm crumpled up in my bedroom floor crying because I just can't handle it anymore, I can look to the perfect love of God for hope and endurance. 

So, on the February 14th, as we are surrounded by teddy bears and red roses, let’s look to the cross of Christ and remind ourselves of what love really is... perfect love that casts out fear. I challenge you to pray and ask God to show you ways that you can reflect his perfect love to your family. Let me warn you though, if you ask for this, be prepared to be convicted over and over again. 

Happy Valentines Day Seen Ya Day! ~K