Love Bravely Like Christ

While on maternity leave, in a rare moment of feeling rested for some unexplained reason, I made this. 

It hangs in our hall so we can't avoid looking at it the entire time it takes to make it from one end of the hall to the other. It is our family mission. I cannot say I do each of things things well, or all the time. But I do each of them sometimes, with varying levels of success. My hope and prayer is that as we focus on being the family described on my wall, other people (who know nothing of my art) will think to describe us using words like these.

As I walk the hall over and over each day, I wonder about each line. What does is mean to be vulnerable? Which vulnerabilities are good to share with whom? How real do I want to be? When am I speaking the truth in love and when am I using the truth to justify my sin, blame others, harbor hatred, or be bossy? Every line in this piece of art causes me to stop and examine my heart. The last line, however, really stumps me. I have no confusion about the idea that loving as Christ did is the the essence of being alive. What confounds me, is what it looks like to love bravely like Christ? When I think about my clients, I'm pretty sure loving like Christ looks like requiring a sex addicted man to participate in treatment, not continuing therapy with someone who wants to use attending but not working in therapy as a way to say they've tried, listening with interest when someone tells the same story of being hurt multiple times, extending grace when a client has lost their job and cannot pay for my time, and obviously, caring deeply for each person who spends time on my couch. Loving bravely like Christ, is entirely different when it comes to my own life.

In my own life, sometimes I just don't know what it means to love. Most often I have a sense of what is NOT loving bravely like Christ. If God uses our troubles and failures to offer redemption, shouldn't I utilize my own troubles and failures to help redeem moments here on earth? I will pray for you and you pray for me, that we might learn from our mistakes and grow to be more like Christ in how we love others.  Otherwise, we're not even really alive.