Prologue

For as long as I can remember, I have always loved love.

I was the girl leaving notes from a “Secret Admirer” in her crush’s cubby in Kindergarten; I was the relationship counselor in middle school, despite never having my own relationship; I became a romance novelist; and there was no ending that wouldn't result in happily ever after, somehow and someway.

All that to say, I am deeply passionate about relationships. But I would be amiss if I entered into a series on "Christian relationships" done rightly and didn't establish this truth first.

That, for all the things I know to be true about love, all the things the Bible has taught me about how relationships should reflect Christ, it is only recently that I fully accepted this necessary cornerstone for relationships that reflect and honor the Lord: You can't earn love.

At the end of October, I was coming off of what had been one of the most stressful and busy work seasons I've experienced, my short-lived relationship at the time was rapidly imploding, I had grown stagnant in my walk with the Lord, I was trying to desperately understand and figure out what this whole "being a independent adult" thing was supposed to look like, and it felt as though I was falling into a black hole I thought I could claw my way out of with accomplishments.

Serve more, love more, show up more, meet with people more - do more, and MAYBE that will stop the God-shaped hole in your heart from eating you alive, whose love you don't even realize you're running from. The lie in my head said, "Keep performing, don't drop those balls, cause IF YOU DO, then you will lose it all" - everything you've "worked to achieve" will be gone if you don't keep up the pace.

And then, despite my best efforts, the balls dropped.

A case of untreated mono sent my body into self-destruct mode, and the antibodies that were supposed to protect me from disease decided to eat my platelets instead, sending my numbers plummeting. The treatment: 5 days on an IV-drip medication, strapped to a hospital bed.

I was rarely allowed out of bed, I wasn't allowed to shower by myself because a fall of any kind could mean internal bleeding, and the slightest bump turned into a pretty gnarly bruise. All the striving I was doing suddenly had to cease.

And you want to know the craziest part of it all? I wasn't able to work, I couldn't show up as a friend in any meaningful capacity, I couldn't serve at church, and people still chose to love me.

Every text that came through checking in, every visit from someone who cared, every ounce of support I was shown, sent a short circuit through the wiring in my brain that couldn't comprehend why these people would love me. I had nothing to offer them; no performance; no superman ability to prove the value I could add to their life - and they still loved me.

I was every kind of jumbled up and humbled coming home, knowing I would barely be able to leave my house for at least a month - my platelets were back to normal and sustaining, but I had a compromised immune system and worn-out body that just needed time to heal. My relationship was still falling apart, and I had no choice but to sit at home and sit in it, and I praise God He orchestrated that, because for every way I was being shown what love wasn't, there were people showing me what it was.

I remember sitting in my driveway, crying my guts out, because for the first time in my life, I fully accepted and understood: I can't make "love" stay because it's not something I can earn. I can try and strive for the rest of my life, and it will never be enough; but the flip side to this beautiful reality is: if I can't earn love based on my actions, then that means it is not the things I do that give me value - I simply am valuable. And if my friends, family, and church can love me THAT much when I have done absolutely nothing to earn it, how much greater is the Father's love for me?

I knew God loved me; I've known that since I was a child and first heard Jesus wanted a relationship with me, but I had never allowed myself to fully sink into the reality that even the best of my striving will never be enough to earn love from people or from God.

Pure love, real love; the love of Christ is far too magnificent to comprehend with our human minds; so we get glimpses.

The goal of relationships is a glimpse of the love Christ has for us; to put words to the intangible; to attempt to wrap our minds around something so much more massive than we will ever fully understand. And we can do nothing to earn it, and nothing to lose it. It simply is.

So, as we embark on this journey of unpacking relationships done rightly with and through Christ, I ask you - no, I challenge you to cease your striving. The rest of this series cannot and will not invade your soul if you carry on believing that love is a transaction - believe me, I have tried to earn it in a million ways my entire life, and every time I am taken back to this truth:

"Cease your striving and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth." Psalm 46:10

To cease striving is to pause long enough to enjoy the presence of God; that amidst the good, we can still be so caught up in doing the "right things" that we miss the opportunity to just sit in awe and appreciation. We miss the glimpses because we forget we are loved exactly as we are.

And this comprehension of how deeply Christ loves us? Revolutionizes the standard of love we should accept from our relationships (but that's a happily ever after for another time...).

Until then...

Will you accept it?

-Emma

"I accept the great adventure of being me."