Fashioned love

We were giddy with joy and excitement over being surrounded by snow, our noses almost touching the  windshield, necks trying to do the 'owl thing', in order to take it all in. The Jeep barely at a halt before we scrambled out the door, but once outside we had to just stand still and breathe, in awe and wonder at this amazing beauty that went on as far as our eyes could see.

              photo by: www.tbphotographypdx.com 

Turning a slow circle, seeing the trees behind, on either side and ahead, their branches drooping, heavy with snow. All's quiet except when snow cascades of the branches and you find yourself inside a snow-globe...... peaceful, serene, majestic.

When you look at all that 'whiteness' it's hard to fathom that each snowflake is different from the next one - they are innumerable! To us at least, as the stars are......

Loving macro photography, I soon had to switch from the 'scenic'  lens to the 'up close and personal' one, and through that lens I get it - the fact that everything is uniquely unique.

And I realized that as unique as we are, you and I, so is God's love for us. His love is fashioned for us individually. He loves us all equally, not me more than you or visa versa - but His love is fashioned to me as it is to you. We are different, you and I, no dispute about that, and the way we need to 'be loved' is just as different too.

      photo by: www.tbphotographypdx.com

Think about it - a family of multiple children, the parents love them all, yet still loves each child differently.Not more, not less, just differently.
If your child needs hugs to feel loved, you hug them, if your child feels loved by doing things together, you do that - bake/cook/build or create things, if your child feels loved when you listen to them, you take time to sit and hear their thoughts/concerns/dreams etc.
I have observed where this has been reversed - where the child would pick the activity loved by the parent and pursue that in order to get time with and/or approval/love from them.
Sad as that is, how often do we as children of God fall into the same behavior....... doing things/behaving perfect in effort to gain/attract his love. We haven't found the rest in the knowledge of His love for us individually, experienced how uniquely He shows his love for us.

Could it be that shooting star was just meant for you? Did you see that beautiful flower in the shrubs behind the tree on your walk - did it make you smile? A stranger's smile/ compliment? A piece of music to cause you to unravel, fall apart and in the end be more at peace than before?

 Have you sat still lately to let Him love on you? Listened for Him to 'speak' to you as only you'd hear him?

You are his beloved! His workmanship. Woven, knit together before anyone but he, was aware of your existence. His love for you is unselfish and so filled with risk.
The risk, that you wouldn't accept it, acknowledge it, reciprocate it - even be aware of it.......


                                          "Taste and see that the Lord is good" Psalm 34:8

When this revelation hits me - that I am loved, not just in the big scoop of humanity "God loves us all", but that His love for me is also personal, intimate and unique and fashioned to 'fit' me -
when I can fully receive that truth and let it penetrate my mind and heart,.....
                                                     
                                                            then striving ceases.
 - then the child-like call; "see me, see me, mom/dad see me" becomes quiet in the knowledge that I am seen, loved and embraced.
 - then the need to perform for approval/acknowledgment dies in the assurance of His love for me is based on who I am, not what I do.
 - then the comparison to, and desire to be/copy someone other than me, falls away in the revelation that I was created as one of a kind and I am loved as me.

-b