Friday, February 20, 2009

What's your love story?



For a project at church, we are collecting love stories. I'm not just talking about romantic love stories, but how loving someone has changed your life. Or maybe how someone showing you love has affected you. It might be a story of generousity, forgiveness, redemption or hope. It doesn't matter what the circumstances are, it is your story. But please tell me your story. Do it here or send it to me--call me, write me, e-mail me, just take a minute this week to share your story with me. Thanks.
I guess it wouldn't be fair for me to ask you to do this without sharing a story of my own.
There are so many examples of people showing me love in my life, my husband, my parents and my siblings have all loved me over and over even when I was completely unloveable. I can still distinctly remember one time in particular.
As a teenager I was lost. I seemed to know the right answers but purposefully chose the opposite. I made a lot of choices that I am not proud of. If there was a rule I wanted to break it, even if it meant sneaking and being dishonest. Trying on this new 'bad girl' skin to see what it was like. Apparently I wasn't very good at it, though--because I got caught. Alot.
One time I got caught (I think it was skipping school or breaking curfew) blatenly disobeying my parent's rules AGAIN. All afternoon I sat in my room dreading the fallout of the event. I practiced giving my parents an indifferent shrug and snide countenance. They came into my room and told me to get in the car. Now I was nervous. We started driving and it was very quiet at first. Then they started talking to me about what I had been doing. Not yelling, but asking and listening. Then I saw where we were going--a little greek restaurant that I hadn't tried before but wanted to. We sat together and talked. We talked about the food--it was good. and we talked about the choices I needed to be making. There was no anger, only love, guidance and forgiveness. When I wnet to sleep that night, I lay there knowing that my parents loved me no matter what. They did not like what I was doing but they liked me, and they always would. I went on to make even more mistakes and I am sure that I will continue to make more, but I know that my Poppa and Mom will love me despite them. This demonstration of their love not only gave me a peace and security all me life, but have given me an even greater gift. Now that I am a mother, I can model myself after them. I can show my children what unconditional love is and give them that gift.
That's my story. What's yours?

2 comments:

Josh said...

OK you are now officially the favorite....hahahah!

Josh said...
This comment has been removed by the author.