A Burning Love

How can God bring love from this? This mess, this chaos, this storm? I've been tossed to and fro these past months...between my flesh and the Spirit.

I laugh when I consider how, just months ago, I was worried that I wasn't finding myself in enough situations to be a "good witness". You know, churchy talk slips in a bit of guilt here and there when it comes to spreading God's Word. If you aren't willing to go out on the streets and proclaim God to the lost and downtrodden then you've got some mighty confession ahead of you.

Well. What about within the walls of your home? What about living with the lost day in and day out? What if the one person you love the most in the whole world, falls into the shadows of the Godless?

These past months, my flesh has told me to let him go, to walk away. IT. IS. TOO. HARD. But, then there is my heart. My heart bleeds, it screams, it shatters over and over again...with every argument, with every sneer, every unaffected expression when God's truth is revealed. The broken aftermath of my heart's storm is no doubt a hideous sight to spiritual eyes.

And yet, through it all, I have never loved him more. There were times over these months when I couldn't find the love that I thought had been there. There were times where hatred would creep in and try to obliterate my heart once and for all.

But as I sit here, among the strewn pieces, the crushing words, the sin-stained betrayals, I find a burning cinder of love. As the Spirit blows, it swells, and a flame shoots through my chest. I love this man more today, on this side of an ugly storm, then I did when we were in the calm and standing tall on the same Rock.

My love for him is desperate. So much has been said and implied. I am desperate for healing and loving. And it's not out of witness...it's not because a churchy proclamation tells me I must bring the lost to His Glory.

No. Through this, I know, that only God can decide when to do that. That witness is only lead by the Spirit, and not by the presence of the lost. I am only called to love.

That's it.

And I have never been more sure of who my heart longs for on this earth, and Who my heart belongs to in Heaven.

It's a heart divided, some might say, but I believe it's a heart redeemed and refined by a burning love.