“I love you back”

This week we have had to say goodbye to some very special people in our lives. It’s just the beginning. It seems harder in some ways, especially dealing with my babies, knowing they are hurting. When I see it getting to them it rips my heart in two. This weekend I was really asking The Lord to show me how to deal with this. He gave me a message from a friend of ours on Sunday morning. God is so good. The story referenced was of Abraham sacrificing Isaac. I’m not completely sure how to express what that did for me in those moments, also thinking of the very God of this universe giving up his own Son because of His love for us, in order to express true love it involved a sacrifice. And there are many more references In the Bible referring to sacrifices made, these are sometimes the greatest pictures of love we can express.

When I think of those that I love its through the thick and thin. My relationship with my husband or children. When my husband loves me through the difficult me or the ungrateful me, that’s when I see his deepest love. There is a sacrifice of true love, sacrifice of time and convenience, through the dark days. God took it a step further and sacrificed his only Son for me. That’s a whole different kind of love. How do you say thanks for that? We can never repay him, but we can say “I love you back,” it’s easy for me to say “lord, I love you” when we are having a good day. It’s sometimes the silent I love you, that’s the sweetest. Sometimes it’s the I love you that is breathed through tears as you comfort your own children who are learning what it sometimes takes to express complete love. I’ve been here before, I’ve said these goodbyes but I’ve never had to ask my children to do it. No parent wants to see their child hurting, but those are the days they grow the most. It’s something The Lord is really going to use in their lives. I pray that they can understand we’re saying I love you back. It’s our deepest way of expressing complete love.

You may be asked to say goodbye or to go through something else difficult, it’s so easy to take it and think it unfair of God to ask you to do such a thing. But He is always good, and deserves our complete love and devotion, in fact He did it for you, in a far more sacrificial way. During those times we have a choice, we can get bitter not understanding it all, or we can trust Him expressing the sweetest gift of love back to Him.

We love him, because he first loved us. (1 John 4:19)

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. (John 15:13)