LOVE...we have no idea...

I am an animal lover!  I love all kind of animals.  As far as pets, most people fit into one of two categories…a “dog person” or a “cat person.”  I can’t say that I fit into either category, really…because I love cats and I love dogs.  Unfortunately, my husband and cats don’t go well together, and I don’t want to get rid of him!  So, we recently added a new member to the family.  About 9 months ago, we got a puppy!  For my children, this is their FIRST puppy…  For me, this is my first puppy in about 15 years, and the FIRST puppy that I have ever had in the house!  She won me over in no time, and I am extremely attached to her.  Sometimes I look at her cute little face, and say, “Do you have any idea how much I love you?”  She is loyal, she is obedient (most of the time)…but she can’t love me in the way that I love her, and she can’t know how much I love her…

                                                                                                

Now, puppy love is one thing…but the love of a mother…that’s a totally different spectrum.  If you have read my previous blog posts, you know that I have two boys and a girl.  My boys are 9 and 8 (born 13 months apart), and my daughter is 6 (and a half!).  I stay at home with them and homeschool them.  They are a part of my every day, 24 hours a day…and I wouldn’t have it any other way (even on the difficult days).  I believe that children are a blessing, a gift, given to us by God (Psalm 127:3).  I am thankful that I am able to be with them, to teach them, and to love them!  Many times throughout the years, I have looked into their eyes, and said, “Do you have any idea how much I love you?”  My mother used to tell me that I would never know how much she loved me until I had children of my own.  I believe that she was right.  I understand so much more now about why she did, said, and chose the things that she did.  While my children DO love me, they don’t know the love of a mother (or a father) yet…

 

I have also been blessed to experience another spectrum of love…the love that I have for my husband!  We celebrated our tenth anniversary this year.  I can truly say that my love for him is more today than it was 10 years ago.  It is a love that words cannot describe, and that spans so many situations.  My husband loves  me, and has the capacity to feel the same love for me that I feel for him, yet some days, I will ask him, “Do you have any idea how much I love you?”  His response is usually, “I think so,” with that little smirk of his that I love so much!  I couldn’t imagine my life without him, and I don’t want to ever have to experience life without him!

 

While I am so blessed to experience the depths of different kinds of love in my life, there is one love that I just cannot comprehend!  “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotton Son that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.”  (John 3:16)   “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”  (Romans 5:8)  “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?   Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? … But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  (Romans 8:35, 37-39)   “By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him.  In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”  (1 John 4:9-10)

“O how He loves you and me, o how He loves you and me.  He gave His life, what more could He give…o how He loves you, o how He loves me, o how He loves you and me.”  (O How He Loves You and Me! by Kurt Kaiser)

“He left the splendor of heaven, knowing His destiny was the lonely hill of Golgatha there to lay down His life for me.  And if that isn’t love then the ocean is dry, there’s no stars in the sky, and the sparrow can’t fly.  If that isn’t love, then heaven’s a myth.  There’s no feeling like this.  If that isn’t love…”  (If That Isn’t Love by Dottie Rambo)

“…Could we with ink the ocean fill and were the skies of parchment made, were every stalk on earth a quill, and every man a scribe by trade…to write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry, nor could the scroll contain the whole tho stretched from sky to sky.  O love of God, how rich and pure!  How measureless and strong!  It shall forevermore endure the saints’ and angels’ song.”  (The Love of God by Frederick M. Lehman)

 

And…all of those things that I mentioned at the beginning of this post…He gave them all to me because He loves me…to show His love for me!!!  

 

I wonder if God sometimes asks, “Do they have any idea how much I love them?”

“…and to know of the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge…”  (Ephesians 3:19)

We have no idea…