Every October, my husband and I kick off some old black and white film love with a few Alfred Hitchcock classics and other Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart favorites with good ole chili and pumpkin pie making. We also have our traditions like watching "Rear Window" on Halloween after a night out of trick or treating with the kids or watching "It's a Wonderful Life" every Christmas night. I'm ever more thankful that I found a husband who has a love for old classic movies as much as I do. This year we found a new holiday treasure, "Meet Me in St. Louis."
This year, there was something different about my Frank Capra favorite and it wasn't that I finally got to watch it in color. It's hard not to watch the ending of 'It's a Wonderful Life' without getting a little teary eyed, but this year, I found myself blubbering more and overwhelmed with emotions. Suddenly, it was as though I was George Bailey himself. I felt overwhelmed with the love from all the people in my life who have loved me unconditionally. All their loving kindness set out before me like the heap of money before George Bailey. The love just didn't stop. Their love just kept overflowing in abundance. There were so many times I didn't know how to love back or even accept love, but it didn't matter, the dear ones in my life always seemed to outpour more of it. George, himself, was left with more in return than what he originally lacked.
Also in that same moment, I could feel all the lies of the enemy in my Motherhood. The ones that tell me I'm not enough, I'm too much, too impatient, lost my cool too many times, the many weights of Mom guilt that keep me awake at night. I watched as George Bailey always tried to do right by his family, but even in a moment of frustration and weakness, came home yelling to stop playing the piano and kicking over his office in frustration, but his family still saw him as good and whole. Those moments didn't define who he was as a husband or father, just as in the moments I lose myself, they don't define who I am. There are things I do that may be good or bad, but that doesn't make me good or bad. His family stood with him with pride and love because they knew who he was.
Over the course of the last decade, God has been sending so many people into my life to flood me with love. The intervals in which God has been sending people have come closer together to where it has met me square on and the scales/walls are finally being pulled from my heart.
Just this week, I had a friend drop by with a king cake (Mardi Gras). She's originally from New Orleans and she was excited to wish us a "Happy Feast of the Epiphany." Not only did I feel overwhelmed by the kindness of her gesture, but I knew God was loving on me in extension in that moment. She was so thoughtful to think of us while she was out shopping at the store, but also knowing it was God's way of saying He was thinking of me as the idea was whispered on her heart.
God is in the moments of kindness. He is in those moments of love when we don't know how to understand them. I'm thankful He hasn't relented.
There's a reason God tells us in His word that people will know us by our love or the greatest commandment is to love your neighbor. Love is what pursues the hearts of His people. Love has the power to change and convict. Love can break through walls, chains, and bring us back into the Father heart of God.
Loving others also teaches those who have never been exposed to the true attachment of love or what love is or looks like, it's weight.
This Summer I went to an inner child healing/trauma workshop. On the first day they asked what are the three specific goals I would like to achieve from the workshop. My second answer was that I would understand and feel the depth of love.
I learned through the workshop that I had a broken attachment growing up and it has been a source of disconnect for me. Through God's gracious healing and the overwhelming love of people around me, for the first time ever, I've been able to say I can feel love in genuine depths....sometimes I still don't understand it and I'm wanting earnestly to learn to give it back to others because it's been the uttermost beauty in my life. I would not be where I am in life today without the people who have surrounded us to make our life so wonderful.
God is love and He uses each of us and our kindnesses to pursue the people around us.
Love is our greatest giving power. Use it generously.
