LOVED as you are.

You.

Yes. YOU.

Weak. Sick. Wounded. Hurting. Foolish. Poor. Unmarried. Unemployed. Old.

Those who feel broken.

Those who feel discarded by our society.

I know. Everyone tells you how are not enough. They ask questions that make you feel not enough as you are.

When will you get married?

When will you have babies?

When will you get a job?

When will you get better?

When will you take control?

What are your goals?

Will you ever change?

When will you work again?

Will you use that college degree? Or just waste it?

What do you DO all day?

It makes you spin and strive and suffer and wonder.

You wonder, will you ever reach it?

Will you ever be enough?

Will you ever feel like you are enough?

You are enough.

I know the world doesn’t make you feel that way.

I know the world makes you feel broken, worthless, discarded.

You are enough. As you are.

God loves you. As you are.

You don’t need to shape up to come to him.

You don’t need to change yourself to come to him.

He isn’t asking you to BE perfect. He is asking to MAKE YOU perfect…THROUGH HIM. Big difference.

This is what I have learned. This is what God is teaching me. Over the past 2 years I have become worth so little to the world. I went from relating to the pharisees of the bible, to the leaper. Such a weird shift. The pharisees have wealth, power, influence, faith, admiration of the people. This was me in so many ways. I had everything I could have ever wanted and asked for. Some would say “I was blessed.” (I am starting to learn that God’s blessing is not really what we in the world would tag as #blessed.)

I also had pride, control, and judgement of others (and myself). I strove to give all, reach it all, attain it all, to be perfect. I went to church to listen to sermons to hear how I could be better. They told me how I could be better. More loving. More giving. More kind. More selfless. Serve more. Give more. Do more. Pray more. Get more. I wrote it down and I set goals. I strove. Sometimes I even achieved. Sometimes I even succeeded.

It never felt enough.

Despite it all, I never felt enough.

I never FELT ENOUGH.

Good enough. Rich enough. Kind enough. Generous enough. Christian enough. Etc.

I never FELT ENOUGH.

I felt tired.

I felt I would never obtain enoughness.

So I found myself coming to God. Not at church. Not through friends prayers. Just him and me. He and I. Alone. Together. I cried out to him.

“What can I do to feel enough?”

“DO?” He laughed with a gentle chuckle. Not a mean, demeaning, laughter. But that of a father with a child he loves and adores. That laughter of a father who wants to give a child a lifetime full of joy and they ask for a sticker.

“Come to me. Sit with me. Trust me.”

So I sat. I felt his love. Love unexplainable. I didn’t need to do anything. I didn’t need to stop being anything I was. He didn’t ask me to change, just to sit with him.

Just sit.

So I sat.

WITH Him.

He is Immanuel…”God with us”.
He loves being WITH US just like you love being WITH those you love. You don’t have to DO things to be loved by God. Did you know that? Somewhere along the way I think I got the impression that I had to perform to be loved, by everyone, especially by God. To DO: To serve. To work. To give. But now I realize that real love doesn’t need you to DO anything. In fact, I think you really know you love someone when you just want to be with them. It doesn’t mean they are perfect, you just want to be with them. Sit with them. By them. Feel them. You just love their company. I know that is how I feel about the people I love. I just want to be with them.

God feels that way about you too. And me. He loves being with us. So so much.

Yes, of course he is with us all the time. Yes, I know that. But there is something different about choosing to sit with Him. To sacrifice part of your busy day just to sit with Him. To be with Him. To choose Him.

So I sat. No doing. No striving. No goal setting. Just sitting with him and asking him to fill me with his love.

Much to my surprise he didn’t ask me to change. He didn’t ask me to DO things to get rid of my perfectionism, my anger, my fears, my sins. He didn’t ask me to be less me. Or a different me. He just asked to be WITH ME. To let Him love me. As I was. No change necessary.

To LET HIM LOVE ME.

Me. No change necessary.

Do you know how hard this is? It is so hard to let Him love me like that. I kept expecting he was loving me because he needed me to DO something for Him. Like an exchange. A quid pro quo. That is how we love each other a lot of the time, isn’t it? But God kept telling me He doesn’t love like that. He just loves us so much. He just wants to be WITH us.

I am a slow learner maybe? Or thick headed? I don’t know. I had trouble really believing this.

Then he started to take away my ability to DO. I got sick, then sicker, then sick sick sick. I lost my ability to DO things for the Lord, but He didn’t pull His love away. In fact, I felt it more. When I couldn’t DO for Him anymore, I felt His love even more. I felt His love wrap around me in a profound way. An unexplainable way. A way that makes one not want to even get better, but stay sick, because the love I felt was worth the world looking at me like I was nothing. It was worth losing my job, my value, my identity, money, autonomy…..all the things I started to lose. It was worth it.

Loved as I am. No change necessary.

It was worth it. It is worth it. Being with God, feeling loved by Him, completely loved AS YOU ARE…..I can tell you I would give up the world to keep that feeling. It is unfathomably good.

In a way I guess I became addicted to Him. Sitting with Him. Feeling His love. I still am. Man, I love God more than anything in the world.

Sitting with Him.

WITH HIM.

Choosing Him.

Letting Him love me as I am.

Then one day I realized something. It was HIM who was the one who started DOING.

All we have to DO is to choose Him. To sit with Him. To choose WITH. As we are. No changing or improvements needed. No sacrifices or burnt offerings. No shaping up or dressing up to come see Him. No need to present yourself as you would to a king. My kids would be happy to know, you don’t even have to take a shower or clean under your nails. Bad behavior and bad manners welcome. He just loves you wildly AS YOU ARE. Isn’t that insane? All we have to do it RECIEVE. You just have to let Him love you like that.

I guess I am ready to emerge from this process God has had me in. I am ready to write about it. There is so much to share, and this is only the beginning. But I have to start here because it is also where I started: learning that I am loved as I am, no change necessary.

You are too.

Loved.

Enough.

No change necessary.

Loved.

As you are.

Truly.

Loved.

Happy Valentine’s Day.