Devotional- A New Love

“Was that a snicker I heard? Did a part of a smile just go across her face?” I asked myself these questions in the half of a second I had in a conversation with a friend a couple weeks ago. I’m pretty sure now, looking back, that she was snickering at me for my overprotective-mother-nature. (Don’t Google that phrase as I just made up a new clinical term for us ‘helicopter moms’)

Tonight, as I write this, I dropped my 9 year old daughter off at camp. It’s left me with some new feelings and emotions. Being an expressive person, I have recently shared my thoughts and feelings on leaving my innocent child in a new building, new bed, and 2 1/2 hours away! I’ve gotten more snickers and looks like I’m absurd, than usual.

As I drove away from her today my heart got heavier and heavier. Thoughts of “what if” swirling around with thoughts of “I’m forgetting something. Oh yeah, my daughter!” I shared my thoughts with my friends and family in the car: as I did I realized something…

I thought it’s been fear and anxiety plaguing me the last couple days. And yes there is some there, but not an unhealthy amount. But there is something so much bigger, grander.

If you know my story, you know I have 5 children in heaven. Two at my own decision. I’m forgiven and you can read about that all here. Today, God has shown me how love has grown in me. He’s healed my heart and opened it to freely love! The more I walk away from my past and keep it under the blood; the more my heart heals and sees things, everything differently.

In order to live in the world and be like the world, one must have a cloak around their hearts. You must get street-smart quick and learn to roll with the punches, no matter how hard they hit. If a person can’t do these things they usually find their comfort in anger or hide in addiction. The heart is not allowed to love freely. Not the way God designed it to love. Not even a mother can feel the full extent of love when being bogged down with addiction or shame or regret.

When God lifts and clears anger, shame and addiction, the walls around the heart slowly fall down and the heart is exposed to a new feeling. A raw emotional feeling. God showed me today that this is where I’ve been the last year or so…in a place called a new love.

It isn’t fear that stops me or holds me back with certain things concerning my children. It’s love. Because of a new love, I will fear this evil world enough to keep them from being to big of a part of it. Because of a new love, I will keep an eye on where they are and who they are with. Because of a new love, I feel a pressure that time is ticking fast for me to pour all I can into them before they take off on their own paths.

Snicker if you will at my overprotective-mother-nature. Think to yourself how absurd I look to you. But I dare you to get close because this new love could rub off on you!