On Extraordinary Love

There's Mother Theresa, there's Mr. Luther King Jr., there's Oprah, but I never really learned a single thing from them; they never challenged me or made me feel uncomfortable with my life at the time. They inspired me, sure, maybe even moved me to tears in some instances when I would be reading tracts hand-written from jail with language that made love come alive, and sometimes when I want to indulge in my knack for inspirational quotations, I turn to these people as my source, because they did good, real good, maybe extraordinary, out of the ordinary good, in this world. But when I really think about it, these people aren't really that extraordinary when I think about the truly extraordinary people that God planned to be in my life.

My mom, is extraordinary. She is extraordinary in my life because I have learned of the compassion of Jesus Christ through her life of sacrifice and unconditional, uncontrollable desire for people to know that they are loved and that they are never ever alone in their hardships. When a family friend had a son go through by-pass surgery, it would be no question that my mom would be right by his parents' side, running in and out of the hospital buying food for them throughout the night. Whenever my grandmother needed to go to the hospital for a check-up, needed to get her prescription to be cleared up because they accidentally gave her the wrong dosage, needed to get a haircut and wanted some company while she sat waiting for her perm for 5 hours, needed her car battery to be recharged because the weather's been nice lately and she's been choosing to walk more than drive, my mom was first to be called and always to be there before any of her other children. When I would go to a friend's house in another county an hour away, she would always drive me, and she would wait in the car for 3 hours because it wouldn't be worth it to drive back home and back again while I played inside my friend's house. And it's not even about the acts themselves, my mom never felt satisfied in how much love she could give to others especially when she would be a part of people's lives when they were fighting a tough battle. Her heart always fights to love more, to sacrifice more, to really pursue the heart of God for His people with all the intensity she is capable of undertaking. The power of God's love is so alive in my mother, it's something that even she cannot contain, or try to diminish even a portion of it. No matter what her past with an individual may have been, no matter how offended or hurt she may have been with them in the past, if a person landed in the radar of her heart, she was irreversibly drawn to love them with the Father's heart.

Growing up I thought my mom was foolish and a huge push-over for "giving into" doing favors for people all the time and it seemed like she wasn't capable of not letting people step all over her. This is what I thought of my mother when I didn't know God, but now it is undeniable that my mother is one of the most strongest, most extraordinary people in my life. I want to follow so hard after the heart of God that His loving momentum sweeps past all my sinful ways and my human desires and carries me to love like a fool in the eyes of the world. I want to love in a way that the world stops to criticize me for loving just as the way I used to criticize my mom because when I think about how I viewed her actions in the past to now, I see how I was once dead and now I am alive in Christ. I am alive in Christ, my Redeemer!! He lives!!

I miss my mommy.