Love Remembers

The last 6 months have completely rocked my world.  Not because anything has happened to me personally, but because I have watched those that I care about, or those that I know, suffer of the greatest kind.  In it all, I have been looking for God, searching for His sovereignty and wondering where He is.  I don’t know if I found what I was looking for but by searching, watching, and listening, I have learned of the greatest love in the world.

Love comes in so many different ways and shapes and sizes, but these last few months, I have learned that love is always there.  Love remembers everything that happens, sacrifices that were made, things that were lost, hearts that were broken.  Love is always there.  If we choose love, it will remain.

Love remembers my friend Charity.  Charity and her husband, Tony, were blessed with a beautiful baby girl named Alethia Joy.  She was born on February 3, 2009 and was ushered into the safe arms of Jesus before she ever drew a breath here on earth.  In watching Charity (and Tony, but mostly Charity) deal with her grief, I know this: she doesn’t belong here.  People like Charity don’t belong on the same earth as me.  People like Charity belong in Heaven.  People like Charity bring Christ to this earth, and I look at her, and I just know that there’s something different about her.  I think it’s because she was asked to give up her one and only daughter to the Father.  Like He sacrificed His Son for us, for us to grow closer to Him, Charity gave her daughter up to Him, for Alethia’s story to find someone’s heart, so that the lost could grow closer to Jesus.  Since hearing the news late on February 2, there has not been a single day that I don’t pray for Alethia and her mom and her dad.  There’s not a single day that I don’t wish the best of God’s love, the greatest of His blessings on their family.  I sometimes look at my own beautiful daughter and wonder why I was allowed to keep her, but Charity wasn’t allowed to keep her baby, and it breaks my heart.  It’s not fair.  I pray that I never forget Alethia’s story, because her story is Charity’s story, and Charity’s story is of a human’s love for her Father, a woman who loved her Father so much that she chooses every day to give Him the glory for the life that she had to give up.

Love remembers a boy I knew in high school.  I managed the swim team, he swam backstroke.  After graduating he married (get this!) a teammate’s sister and had a beautiful baby boy.  About three years later, they were expecting their second child – a girl.  They named her Hope Elizabeth.  Shortly after they found out that the baby was a girl, they found out that Hope had a heart defect, one that would demand open heart surgery shortly after birth.  There began a campaign to get Hope to the best pediatric cardiac center in the country.  Hope was born, a full term baby, and the quest began to get her healthy enough to nurse, to thrive, to live.  Hope shocked all of her doctors by coming through surgery and making it, being stronger than anyone would have ever expected.  And then, three weeks after her birthday, Hope went into cardiac arrest and died.  But her legacy is one of a baby who fought with her whole heart.  Her parents remind everyone that only Jesus could heal Hope’s broken heart and now she was perfectly whole again.  They remind everyone of Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Love remembers a friend whose husband has had four affairs.  FOUR.  He apparently had one of these while she was bearing one of their children.  After each of these she has taken him back, forgiven him, and started over again.  They have raised a family together, but after almost twenty years and affair after affair, she’s throwing in the towel.  She’s done.  But love remembers her heart for forgiveness and gives her strength to go on.

Love will remember a little boy whose father struggles to do what is right for his son, while losing so many things that are important to him.  Love remembers the father whose own heart breaks for his boy, at the same time trying to make his own life better.  Love remembers a young man who can’t remember what it was like to be happy and who’s scared to be on his own.  He doesn’t know what it’s like to want to get up in the morning, and he can’t remember days when he would smile and laugh.  But love is there, if he would choose to believe it.

Love also remembers the husband and wife who put each other above everything else.  Love remembers the big brother who brings his little sister a cupcake from school.  Love remembers the little girl who smiles just because mommy gave her a kiss.  Love remembers best friends at school, who look forward to each morning just to see one another.  Love remembers the teacher who poured out everything she had for her students.

I think my point is this: when the people around me begin to suffer, I begin to look more for God’s love to be present.  And what I’ve found is that if I look for it, it’s there.  If we choose to look for God’s love, we will find it, but like so many other things, do we choose love?  Or do we choose something else?  I vote we choose love.  Because love remembers us and it will always remember us.