Too Much Love?

“Oh, how can you go there [Sierra Leone] and work with those children?  I would just cry; I would love them too much.”  The statement  deeply stung my heart.  The implication, though unspoken, is that I don’t love the children as much as she would –  if she were to go, that is.  I wanted to snap back with some fleshy retort but I’m thankful that my tongue was restrained.  Answering in kind would have only inflamed me further and probably would have provoked the woman.  I just smiled and let it go; silence being the better part of valor in this case.

 

 

The Lord then gently reminded me that we had been here before when, many years ago, we provided foster care for neglected and abused children and I had received a very similar comment from a woman at a different church.  In the sharpness of the moment, the Lord tenderly brought me through the lesson again.

 

 

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son.”  What does it mean to So Love?  God’s love was so great that it motivated him to action.

Jesus is the very embodiment of God’s love manifest and displayed in human form.  The Father was not held back from acting on the deep love he felt for mankind;  Jesus wasn’t hindered by the possibility of loving too much.  He went.  He loved.  He cared and gave of himself.   Or as the great hymn says, “[He] emptied himself of all but love.” And Jesus cried as his love moved him to tears and he mourned over the hardness of heart he found in the very object of his affection – the nation of Israel.  But he didn’t quit simply because his love wasn’t reciprocated.  This is to So Love and this is our example.

If these would love “too much,” then I have loved more.  If these would cry, I have wept more.  A heart of charity puts words of love into action.  One must be willing to be crushed to the very core of one’s soul; that is the place that Jesus took.  I think the better question is, “How could I not go to Sierra Leone and work with these children.  How could I not love them and weep for them?  How can I not allow my heart to be broken for their hurting souls?”  This expression of love can never know a “too much.”  Oh, that I may comprehend the fullness of his great love, whatever the cost.  Father, please help me to follow the example given and so love.