Given to me by love

God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Psalm 46:1 (NIV)

The NaBloPoMo theme for March 2009 is "giving (up)," and as I begin this morning, looking at a prayer bible given to me as a gift by my husband twelve years ago and a blank journal which was given to me several years ago by my friend Lois, I am thinking about that phrase and about the interaction between "let go and let God" and being able to give to others. It's the kind of mystery that does make sense, because how can we give to others what we ourselves don't have?

I'm feeling particularly empty-handed right now, not knowing what to say to my friend Lois as she fights for her life in a hospital in Israel, passing along messages like "I love you" and "I'll pray for you" and "thank you," most of all that last. I'm grateful for what Lois has demonstrated for me in action over the past few years, by her choice to be my friend, by her fight to stay alive despite a lifetime of pain, a devastating car accident and an illness which by its nature is ultimately terminal. I suppose that in a way, life itself is always a process of dying, but looking at it that way overlooks that it is also a process of living despite death. Lois has lived and loved in defiance of death. So has my husband. I don't know why either of them would choose to have anything to do with me, but I need to learn to accept that being loved isn't about being worthy of love, it's about love itself.

The Purpose Driven Life devotional for March 1, 2009 which was shared at Facebook yesterday re-tells the story of a returned missionary who taught a lesson about prayer. When one young man said, “Lord, I just need strength; please give me strength,” the returned missionary looked up and said, “Young man, God does not give us strength. He is our strength. Now pray it right.”

When people like Lois and my husband choose to live in the face of death, and to love in the face of human unworthiness to be loved, I am tempted to say that it is because they are stronger than I am, superior to me in every way. That's an easy, selfish answer because I write myself off as weak and try to avoid my responsibility to become more than I am, not out of my own strength, but out of the knowledge that I am loved, by people and by God. That's not my own strength, and it doesn't change the fact of my weakness, but I can still use it.

Lois wrote, "People's love is like lifelines holding me." Stephen Covey writes about being neither dependent nor independent but interdependent with other people. We are not limited by the limits of our own strength. I need to learn that none of us is all alone in this world, not even me.

My prayer for today: Dearest my Lord, remind me that You re-create the universe every day, and that I and those who love me are part of that wonder of creation, renewed each morning. Remind me that it is not about what I can do, but about what You have done, are doing, and will continue to do, in others and in me.