Build with Love

Okay, let’s try this. Let’s just write. The words here are just going to be flowing as I type. I constantly double-check what I’m saying and am never confident in my wording, so that’s what I need. No ChatGPT, it’s me.

The power is in my words.

I remember growing up in the Baptist church. I did Bible drill, Awana’s, VBS… I did them all. I had the Bible memorized. I knew God. My relationship to God was like any good Christian. I prayed constantly, asked for forgiveness of my sins, showed gratitude, and asked for blessings, or prayed for certain people. I felt God. I knew of the Trinity. That God the Father was in heaven, he sent God the Son by a miracle birth, who was Jesus. Jesus died for our sins, and through him we are saved. And we invite the Holy Spirit to live in us, to guide us on a righteous path.

I knew that to be a Christian was to live like Christ. And I believed that. And what was a Christ-like life? “Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”

That was it.

Self-sacrifice.

Voluntarily giving life.

Unconditional love.

Agape.

I knew this in my core, and I think this was always my core. Never lost. But my identity lost it.

Cause my identity was related to a lot of things, like Evangelical Christianity, Republican politics, conservative views.

As I got older, I saw the way the people of those communities treated other people. And it rocked me to my core. Cause my core is agape. And that’s not it. They are focused on power, control, and fear. Love is greater than all those.

This caused the fall. What even is? Like if I thought the most important thing was agape love, and everyone who I grew up with taught me that, but I rarely saw it anywhere in action. Was it even true?

My decline was many years. The hate grew and grew. I began to decide: if I didn’t see love from someone, they didn’t deserve my love, and I cut them out. Hate breeds hate, and this only made things worse as my life went on. My depression and anxiety were out of control cause I was not in alignment with my core.

And then I met Jessica. She was my first glimpse of the Light again. She was agape love to me. And I knew I was home. I didn’t immediately know. But I felt safe. And I kept talking to her, like something about this one is different. She just loved. No matter what. And luckily that fit into my model at the time, she showed me love so I didn’t shut her out. And we continued to talk and then one day I saw it. Her light was what I missed. Unconditional love. I wanted it, I saw the light, and I wanted to bathe in it.

This was the start of my awakening I would say.

I think in this light I sat for a while still a bit confused about what is. But I knew I was safe.

And then one day, God had greater plans for me.

Kat decided she was going to get baptized. She had been going to church for a while with friends from her school.

I knew my daughter. I knew she was love. But I was still worried. People of these churches do so much damage to other people while claiming the name of God. And I wanted her to know that the truth of love is in the Bible. So I sat down with it and went to the verses I know

God is love..

Love is patient love is kind..

And the greatest of these is love..

Love the Lord your God with all your heart soul and mind, love your neighbor as yourself..

We love because he first loved us..

It’s in the Bible all over. My core truth. Like the Bible still speaks it.

And then I broke down and cried. And I started to realize my path of hatred and cutting everyone out of my life.

And then I thought about what love I know. God’s love for us. My love for Jessica, her love for me. my love for my kids… it’s all agape. And that’s where I feel at home.

From here I started to search and search for more. I was in the light, and I had to find more of it.

And there’s a long journey here that I could tell.

But the sum of it is, there’s nothing to find. I am the light. I already knew it. And I am going to light up the world.