True love

We are having a conference here this week at YWAM. Bases from different areas of Mexico and the United states have gathered here to seek God for a week and be recharged and ready to continue the callings God has placed on our lives.

Yesterday as I was walking through the hallway of our main building, I passed by a woman that was crying hysterically, I approached her and put my hand on her back, and I asked her if I could pray for her. She looked up at me and began to explain the reason for her meltdown.

This woman and her husband adopted two children from Mexico, the older boy who is seven years old has been diagnosed with “attachment disorder”.

He was so severely abused as a child and never bonded to another human being properly. His mind is that of a 3 or 4 year old child, but his body is nearly the same size as this small-framed woman.

He acts out and has behavioral issues, some violent. She was told that there was a way that could help cure this disorder. She has strapped this boy to herself in one of those pouches you see so many mothers carry small children in. All day long he is held close to her in the hope of a bond taking place that will heal the wounds he sustained as a young boy.

As she is pouring her heart and tears out to me, I notice the bruises and scratches covering her arms. He spits on her, pulls her hair, slams his head into her face, all in an attempt to push her away as a response to the brokenness he was born into.

My heart is stirring at this point and the Holy Spirit is speaking clearly to me. I ask her if I can pray for her, and I feel God’s heart for her, for that boy, and for all of us as I had a deeper revelation through this woman’s experience.

This woman’s journey is so similar to what we humans go through with God. He longs to hold us close and heal the wounds of the things this world has injured us in. But, so many of us kick, scream, spit on, and bruise our savior. He longs to gather us under his wing and bring our hearts to the wholeness he intended, but we in our brokenness and misunderstanding push him away. Though he does not quit, he fights for us, he takes those beatings for us, his love is so pure and faithful, that he continues to hope for us and lay his own life down for our healing.

This woman spoke something so deeply about father God’s love to me. A love that refuses to quit even in the ugly parts of that relationship, a love that values it’s beloved over it’s own body, a love that sacrifices and lays down it’s own comfort for the better of the other person. True love, father’s love is what that woman is flowing out of. Though she may not be perfect in it, the closer she is to father God, the more you see that flowing out of her and into this sweet little boy who will be healed and whole in Jesus name! This sort of strength and love cannot be done apart from our father and the Holy Spirit. None of us have the capacity to love in such hard times apart from his spirit that makes us able and changes us to be more like our pappa.

In every thing that we face in life, we will come to a point where we must learn his love in order to love. In our relationships with our children, with our spouse, with friends, co-workers, family, those who persecute us… Love is not based on the person being loved, but on the lover. We love because it is who we are. And the only way to make that who WE are is to understand who HE is and being loved by him.

He is the cure to all things we face. And we WILL face those hard things. Life is not void of suffering… But, it is how we understand that relationship and dependency on him that we are able to face these mountains and hurricanes and still say, I will choose holiness, love, righteousness, and I will be JOYFUL in doing it!

He is how we can walk forward without fear! Remember that verse that says, “Perfect love casts out all fear”? Well he is that perfect love. And it is by him we can know that when a trial comes, we will make it through, because he is always with us. He is always near to us, holding us close to his beating heart, ready to bind up our broken heart and heal those wounds we are given in this life.

Walk forward with him into that deepness, that intimacy! Through that you can face anything!