bind my wand'ring heart to Thee...

if there's anything I've been reminded of this week, it's that love is tough. love is so much work--loving hurts. it's so much about giving and it takes so much strength to love a person. the energy it takes even to choose to love another person...gosh.


Ephesians says we need to be given power in order to grasp God's love, too:

"And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God" (ephesians 3:17-19).

2 Timothy reminds us that God has indeed put a spirit of power and of love in in our hearts:

"For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind" (2 timothy 1:7).


i have been made painfully aware of my inability to love people apart from Jesus. the silliest things fill my heart and my tongue with such rage, such hostility...my flesh is vicious.

on the other hand, i have also been amazed this week at the difference in my ability to love when i am spending time with Jesus every day. =)


and i am been longing for something tangible
some kind of proof
that there’s been change in me
feels like i have been waking up
only to fight with the same old stuff
change is slow and it fills me with such doubt
come on New Man where've you been
help me wriggle from this self i’m in
and leave it like a skin upon the ground
--"like a skin" by Sara Groves