Day 30 of My Live Second Journey: Love ~ Love Across the Miles

I looked at my phone in shock and disbelief.  I had just received a text from a friend and what I had just read was absolutely heart breaking.  My friend’s sister’s child had died in an automobile accident.  I just sat there frozen looking at the phone for a long time not knowing how to behave or what to say back to my friend in return.

Shorty after I received that text message I started having overwhelming feelings of sadness and could not get the tears to stop flowing.  This crying caught me a by surprise because I really do not know the boy or his mother personally.  I know his uncle and have prayed for the family before but I keep wondering does that give me a close enough connection to feel this sort of grief?   As I write this my heart is still is breaking for this family and I still can not get them out of my head.  It seems quite strange to me this overwhelming feeling of sadness I have for someone I have never met and I keep asking myself why can’t I stop crying about this?

Today’s reading in the Live Second book was titled ‘Love” the scripture was from Mark 12:28-34 in that scripture Jesus said “The most important one, is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.  Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

As I read this today I suddenly realized what the reason has been for all of my crying these past couple of days.  I am pretty sure it is because of God’s love inside me. Once we have the love of God inside of us we begin to become more like Jesus.  We begin to care more about and love other people more, including those that we have never met.  The more we grow in Him the more His love keeps filling us up.

God’s love can cross miles.  It can cross oceans and mountains and can make the walls of the hardest of hearts come tumbling down.  His love crosses boundaries we would normally think are un-crossable bringing us all closer together as a family like we were meant to be.

The author of the Live Second book wrote – ‘Love is the reason for our creation and the foundation of all relationships.  The mark of our faith and the goal of our life. It is the thing for which we strive, that height we seek to climb, and that purpose for which we move and breathe and live’.

This side of heaven the family I wrote about today may not ever know God’s purpose for bringing their son home so soon.  They also will never know about me, a woman half way across the country who feels love for them or all the other lives that God’s love touched because of their son and their story. But one thing they will always know about and feel is the love of God.

Living second is feeling God’s love growing more and more inside of me each day until it flows out and spills over onto others.   Living second is when suddenly I realize that God is starting to cover my life with His love and it is filling me up so full the excess flows out of my eyes in tears.

Thank you for reading. Check back tomorrow for Day 31 “Footwash”

#IASlove