Love

“This love of which I speak is slow to lose patience - it looks for a way of being constructive.
Love is not possessive.
Love is not anxious to impress nor does it cherish inflated ideas of its own ideas.
Love has good manners and does not pursue selfish advantage.
Love is not touchy.
Love does not keep account of evil or gloat over the wickedness of other people. On the contrary, it is glad with all good men when truth prevails.
Love knows no limits to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; it can outlast anything. It is, in fact, the one thing that stands when all else has fallen.”

- Elisabeth Elliot, "Let Me Be a Woman"

I'm going to write more about what Elisabeth Elliot has to say about the possessiveness of love, but I have to wait until I can find my book.  Is it at your house, cz?

I am tempted to be possessive with Matthew.  But God gave him, and then he took him back.  Matthew's short life on earth is complete in God's eyes.  He was not jipped (is that how you spell that word?) and although it may feel this way, Ryan and I were not jipped.  I have been called to love, but not cling.  How in the world do you do that? 

I'm not quite sure, but what I do know is that it has something to do with opening my hands and offering back all that God has given me.  Enjoying what I've been given for however long I get to have it for...and then letting go.

"The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” Job 1:21

Ryan and I had to make a lot of choices as Matthew's complications evolved throughout the months.  We could choose to let this trial destroy us or refine us.  We could choose to fear or to trust in God's promises.  We could choose to be embittered or softened. 

Honestly, I had to choose EACH DAY, and sometimes many, many times a day to believe that God was (is) for me.   That's ok.  There were days where I would really struggle with fear.  Fear of what life was going to be like if Matthew lived, fear of what grieving would feel like, fear of future pregnancies, etc.  I would "cast" those fears on the Lord, feel ok for a few minutes seconds, and then felt like I was carrying the fear all over again. 

There were days where I felt exhausted from casting, casting, casting those fears over and over and over again.  But that's ok.  He always met me where I was and it got easier as the days went on and I kept praying verses I had memorized as soon as I felt afraid:

"He is not afraid of bad news;

his heart is firm, trusting in the Lord.His heart is steady; he will not be afraid,

until he looks in triumph on his foes."

Psalm 112:7

Little cutie pie