the not-so-glittery

I should have known.
It's almost a guarantee; when signing up to lead a Bible study you must first learn that topic afresh in your own life.  I thought I could avoid it this time around.  I chose love.  Because I 'know' love.  Or so I thought.  I should have known.
I can count on one hand a few fingers, the hours of sleep I've been getting each night.  If I could hook myself to a coffee IV it would save significant time.. that's how many cups I've been consuming per day.  My sweet baby is fighting a nasty cold; his first, and it's taking a toll on us all.  He is a trooper.  But I'd be lying to say it's not been hard.  Hard hearing that raspy cough.  Hard pinning him down and sucking those boogers.  Hard juggling the craziness of life with the joy of visiting family members.
And every time I get a few minutes with my Bible I'm pondering that upcoming lesson and I'm reading love.  God is love.  I am called to be love.  Overflow love.  Love is kind.  Love always hopes.
So far we've thoroughly enjoyed all of Owen's 'firsts', but this week we experience other firsts as he struggles to nurse because he can't breath out of his nose.  First time sitting in the bathroom with steam spilling out of the shower, desperately praying for airways to clear.  He throws up all the mucus that he doesn't know to spit out and I realize how many times my Mom held me in my sickness.
I feel something inside and it hurts; I would take this yuck a hundred times over for Owen, but I can't.  He looks at me with eyes that say he doesn't understand and I think my heart might actually explode.  It's then that I realize this is a side of love.  Maybe a bigger side than I've ever realized.  The yucky side.  The sleep deprived and gross; keeping on and giving out of a tank that feels empty.  Love never fails. 

Maybe I'll look back on this and realize my assessment was rather extreme.  But in the moment, it's the scariest we've faced with the little man.  Give me a parachute and I'll jump out of a plane.  Give me a plate of unidentifiable and I'll eat it.  Give me a field full of weeds, even, I'll whack them!  But my sick baby is a different story.  I feel inadequate!  I feel scared.  I am wrung out.  But love never gives up.
There's never a great time to be sick, but the long awaited week that we have family visiting would definitely have been my last choice.  Too bad I'm not in charge of those things.  But love perseveres.
I never realized that my parent's executive decisions to head home early or forego an outing all together was actually in my best interest!  'Cruel parents', I'd grumble, not understanding that their actions were for ME; that they actually wanted to go even more than I did!  Now I get it.  I've bailed on card games, dinner prep, grocery shopping, sushi eating, picture taking and surf lessons.  Not because I wanted to but because priorities have shifted.  I sit in the quiet, rocking my unusually snuggly baby to sleep and that is priceless.  I whisper my love to him, tracing his sweet hand as he drifts off to sleep, and I wouldn't trade that for anything.  But that doesn't mean it's not hard.  Love is not self-seeking.  Part of my heart lives outside my body now and that adds another dimension to life.  No, it's not all about Owen, but it's certainly not about me anymore.

Derek goes to work, he presses on, day in and day out.  He caught the sickness but that doesn't slow him down.  He provides, he comes home and entertains, he takes a turn with Owen and he's the one bringing ME fresh squeezed orange juice in the morning.  I don't deserve him.  Thankfully it's not about what any of us actually 'deserve'.  My husband sees me at my worst and loves me still. Thankfully, love is patient.
Love is the most excellent way; the essence of life.  And love is hard; forged in the messy, love keeps no record of wrongs (or the number of times we were up in the night).  And without love I am nothing.  This is not a plea for pity nor a boast of the amount sacrificed in the past few days.  It's just a raw, honest and not-so-glittery look at love.  And I'm not saying this happened because I signed up to lead a Bible study.  But I am saying that when I think I've got things figured out, I'm just simply beginning.
I have a lot to learn about love.
I should have known!
So here's the moral of the story..  I can't do it.  I'm not very patient, not at 3am anyway.  And I can be a little self-seeking, especially after going five days without even time for a shower!  I want to give up and I do get frustrated and I might keep the occasional 'record of wrong'.  I'm called to love and I can't.  Not on my own.  But Jesus can.  He loves me and He can love through me, in me.
His love fills, strengthens and keeps pushing me forward.  The only way I love is because He first loved me.  It was messy and hard when He came as a baby, when He hung on the cross.  There is nothing glittery about that kind of love.  He asked His Abba to 'take the cup' and if I think my heart hurts I can only imagine what God felt as His Son cried out.  But they went through with it.. for me.  Because love never fails.  Jesus always perseveres.
I still have a lot to learn about love; my Bible study lesson is still a month and a half away!  But I'm realizing that it looks incredibly different than what the world knows as 'love'.  It's messy and hard.  It's choosing what's best, not what's necessarily the most fun.  It's sacrifice and giving when you're wrung out and the ONLY way any of it is possible is because of Jesus who did it first, did it perfectly.  I can walk in His footsteps, less of me and more of Him as I reflect the Light and learn to love.

1 Corinthians 13, 1 John 4