- Not The Only One !
- Post# 115
- 11 Jan 24
-
- ” Crazy About You “
- Howdy,
- As the sign out front says, we are glad that you are here☺️. The New Year is in full swing and according to Wal-Mart the next big thing on the calendar is Valentines day☺️☺️. I’m in no hurry to get there , but I do have love on my mind. I think that I have confessed before that I’m pretty close to being a hopeless romantic. I don’t know how I got there. It’s not like I went to bed one night and just woke up the next day, ta dah !, I’m a hopeless romantic, in fact the only thing that truly works that way are old people’s ailments ☺️☺️. That is almost an absolute! , you feel fine when you go to bed at night and you wake up in the morning and wonder who worked you over in your sleep with a bag full of rocks or locks, which ever works for you ☺️☺️, but again I digress. I guess that I’ve always been a little on the romantic side, and as I’ve gotten older it has only grown. I think it has a lot to do with my astrological sign, because we take really good care of people that we set our affections on. We can be extremely attentive and creative, and believe in the big gestures of showing that we care , but enough said about that. Have you ever been involved with someone who just went all out to show you what you mean to them? Have you ever experienced an irrational love? , a love that is so crazy that it just doesn’t make sense? I have spoken before about men who will put up with crazy women, just because the sex was hot and steamy, and I believe that women are occasionally guilty of that as well, but I think that there is a difference between crazy and CCRRAAZZZZY!. If you have never experienced the latter, then consider your self fortunate, and that now you are not trying to figure out how to cover up that tattoo that you didn’t give your full consent to,☺️ oh ! , and of course there was alcohol involved ☺️☺️.
- I’m thinking about something perhaps just a little more on the reasonable side of things. I have a friend down in Raleigh and she was telling me about her once in a lifetime love story. When she was in college, in her early twenties that she met this guy and he loved her so hard that it scared her. She said that she had never experienced such intensity. I mean it makes sense, if you are young, there are probably a lot of first. She said that she didn’t truly know what she had until it was gone. And I’m not just talking about physical love, but someone who anticipates needs and then goes out of there way to make it happen, and occasionally exceed expectations. He moved ever closer , heart open wide, and was singing that song ” ain’t no mountain high enough, ain’t no river wide enough to keep me from getting to you”, that’s not really the name of the song, but some lyrics from. The point is , he was all in and pulling out all of the stops and it scared her, so she ran from the unknown. We are usually a little leery of things that are new to us or force us out of our comfort zones. One of my biggest take aways from her tale was the fact that when she went into the bathroom after him, everything smelled like roses….oh! Wow! , that’s some serious love☺️☺️. I think in the grand scheme of things, they may have just been in two different places. Forty years later, she has never found another love like that. Extremely attractive, smart as a whip, never married and no kids, and only memories of the one who got away.
- I think most of us probably have one that stands out from all of the rest. We remember how they loved us and took care of us , based on the things that they said and did. They say that we will always remember how people make us feel. That can be a little bit of a two edged sword. If they make us feel small and insignificant, we remember that, and if they make us feel so special, like there is no one else in the world but us, then we remember that as well. And one of the most special things in the world is if you don’t miss your ship , when it comes in , and the person that makes you feel as if nothing else matters in the world but you, then you get to spend the rest of your life with that special someone. ☺️
- We all have quality control issues. Most women feel loved when they feel secure as in protection and provision. I don’t mean that in a shallow or , gold digger way, I just think that it’s something that goes to our basic wiring. I know we live in an age of women just killing it. They are CEOs , running small businesses and doing their own thing, whatever that may be, because they have to , or want to. I know that we are a long way off from traditional roles, and thus steps in the stay at home dad. I’m not knocking it and you seriously have to find what works for you.
- Now!, men on the other hand are so much more tied to the physical attachments of life, and whether that is someone who is willing to make them a sandwich while they watch the game, or the other really good stuff and I don’t think that I need to spell that out for you, but just in case you are a little on the slow side , it’s that one thing that we would accept for every birthday, anniversary, Christmas, Father’s day and every other day of the week and it just never gets old. If you want to dress up, you can just stick a bow on yourself at any interesting and opportune spot☺️☺️.
- Now, regardless of however that shakes out for you on the scale of being loved and cared for, there is one that just has no match. I know that’s a bodacious claim in our world of upgrades and just the more is better mentality. I’d be the first to admit that I’m a difficult person to shop for as far as gift giving is concerned and that’s not my love language at all. First off all ,if I have a need or desire, I’m usually pretty nifty or self sufficient about handling those myself. I only bring that up because different people register that whole feeling love thing in a mass of different directions . My go to love languages are touch and time, but I want to share about an all inclusive love that doesn’t matter what your love language is, it’s meant to meet and surpass your wildest of expectations. And , yes I know that some of you think very highly of Yourselves, and even for the most sophisticated of hearts and minds this promises not to fall short and to leave you feeling disappointed or disillusioned.
- There is a love that has lasted down through the ages, and in fact is the foremost authority on love , because He is the author of, creator of, and sustainer of all love of all kinds. No! All love is not the same. Most of us immediately run to romantic love, when we first hear the word love, but there is brotherly love , which incorporates most friendships. Gods love falls under Agape, because it’s all-encompassing all of the different loves together. The amorous love Is what I believe deep down that is everyone’s deepest desire is to have someone that they can be completely vulnerable with and free of judgment and shame, when we drop the ball. A love that is enduring and grows over time with more and more intimacy and passion. A love that knows the real you and doesn’t really care that , you aren’t always your best self, prettiest or having a bad hair day ☺️☺️. A love that doesn’t care if you decide to let yourself go a little bit, but also wants to be there to encourage you to be the best you that you can be.
- I have often been on the record about words being cheap and that we should more so judge people by their actions and see if it matches their words. Love is an action word, therefore it should be accompanied by actual things that we can point out as being loving or a demonstration of that word. I think one of the biggest demonstrations of love is to show grace to someone. We will often interchangeable mercy and grace, but they are actually two different things that work in tandem together. Mercy is not giving someone what they deserve, like God has demonstrated to me time and time again. I know that I mess up on a regular, not my plan, it’s just part of the human condition. I think that a little perspective is important here. When we hurt others, either intentionally or unknowingly, we also hurt the heart of God. Every wrong thing that we do and say is a transgression against God. I think that we tend to minimalize it , by thinking it was just a little white lie, and God knows that we gossip everyday without giving it a second thought. The point is that regardless of how high of a standard we think that we are, we all miss the mark, some more than others, but we all do. The flip side of the coin is grace, which is getting something that we are undeserving of. I will just confess that I often fumble here. I’m probably not alone, but my selfish side usually goes to how others actions effect me , without having the proper empathy to think about what they may be going through In their day. Just that simple careless approach is an offense to God. It’s just an example of how I miss the mark without trying.
- Love is often about sacrificial giving, when you are least prepared to give. We usually ramp it up for our kids, but maybe not so much for others. Love is also about forgiveness. This is as much for yourself as for the person who has offended or hurt you. We all to often allow people to live in our heads rent free. People who hurt or harm us, may be unaware and even if they do recognize the pain that they inflicted, there is no guarantee that they will ever apologize or attempt to make a mends. God created and made us perfect and in His image and then sin entered the world and we often barely resemble anything like His image. God has forgiven us so much and we should extend that to others. I’m not saying that it is easy or without cost, it’s just one thing that we can do to reflect God to others. How about empathy and compassion? There is a natural disaster somewhere in the world, or another senseless mass shooting, and just for a brief moment, we allow those to characteristics to flow to the front of our brains, but does it move us to action. We can’t do everything, but we can do somethings. I don’t know what that is for you. It could be to donate money to a charity in a relief effort, writing a letter to your congress person about gun reform, but how about just starting with a simple prayer, that’s something that we all can do. I’m constantly hammered by God about my patience level, it’s an ongoing challenge for me. I can’t even form my lips for anything that resembles long suffering, in fact that is probably the number one thing that we all try to avoid…..suffering! I have often noticed that my ability to be patient is tied to my ability to be kind. When I’m in a rush to the next thing, kindness often vanishes. It’s like a child’s see saw, if I’m kind then my patience increases and when I’m not the opposite is true. They say that acknowledgment of a problem is the beginning to getting help or turning things around. I just know who I am and I’m kind of aware of a lot of my blind spots. I’m on the record of saying that I’m not a nice person, but I know how to be nice. It’s not a brag or a boast, it’s just an acknowledgment of who I can be at times.
- So…..where are we now? Well, I’m at a Segway and what I would like to say is that the greatest love that has ever existed is God sending His one and only Son into the world to take my punishment for my rebellious heart. See, that one act of love that trumps all other love. God is all of those things that I talked about that we may occasionally allow to be present in our lives. He is long suffering, because if He wasn’t none of us would be here. He is kind and shows us so much mercy and grace each and everyday and for the most part we take it for granted. How often do we take the time to thank God for keeping us safe from harm. Every day we are just moments from being some sort of a statistic. Just because we can’t see it or perceive it, doesn’t mean that dangers doesn’t exist. Empathy and compassion, He is absolutely full of both. He is always available to us in all of the roller coaster circumstances of our lives. We can run from a high to a low in mere seconds, but God is always there, and while we frail in our emotions, God is a constant Rock. God is that Love that we all crave at our core, that we are constantly trying to fill with other people, places and things.☺️☺️ God is that judgement free zone, of you just getting to be you without any pretense. I find it so laughable that we think that we can hide things from Him , or even more hilarious is us pleading our case to God about what a good person we are☺️☺️. Good people, just no such thing, because in order for that to be true would mean that we have never ever done not one single thing wrong in life. If that was true then there would have been no reason for that old rugged cross. Jesus died to save us from ourselves and God did all of that because He is crazy about us. He loves us and wants us to be more like His son. I’m not saying that God is crazy, but He is crazy about us, the ones that He created in His image. Now!!, if you want to talk about an irrational love, that one certainly takes the cake☺️☺️.
- He’s crazy about you, yes you! and he want to spend time with You. I know that many of you sit out there and say that you believe in God, and that’s great, but I also get that many of you who believe in God also take offense at the name of Jesus. The good new is that God say who so ever, so everyone is invited regardless of race, gender, age , social economic status, and anything else that You can think of, come one, come all. The bad news is , Jesus is the only name that God has given for people to be saved. It’s not a religion, it’s a relationship. The message of the gospel, isn’t that there is a God, but that you can know God in a real personal intimate relationship. Remember, He’s crazy about you, and He will never change His mind about you. Be loved in a way that no one else can love you.
- Till Next Time ✌️ Peace!
- Sandy The Southerner
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