The Seventh Day

[Realization #2: I’d never been in love, and was way more resistant to it than I had thought.]

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 This realization wasn’t that much of a surprise to me, honestly. 

The fact that I had gone through life without this concept of “falling in love” wasn’t a bad thing. Not everyone is supposed to experience having a high school sweetheart or marriage by age 20. If you know me, you know that I am a fierce advocate for the “strong, independent don’t-need-no-man woman” agenda. I have maintained the role of severe independence, and if a relationship was ever to occur, I wouldn’t let myself bow to any man. No need to discuss any further– you get the idea– but whatever your opinion is on how healthy my gung-ho is, please keep it to yourself until the end.

So, with this context in mind, I arrive at training camp. Everything is fine and dandy, and the first couple days are packed with plenty of self-reflection about my pride and fears for the upcoming year (see “The Straight and Narrow”). But on the second day or so, walking into worship, new realizations occurred.

Hands in my pockets, I’m singing along as best I can to these songs I’ve never heard. (It’s what happens when your Presbyterian background meets Charismatics.) The refreshing thing about learning new songs is that you can’t often fake your way through the lyrics, so I took this opportunity to hum along and dwell on the words.

“Come in like a fire, come in like a flood, I don’t care what it looks like, I’m so in love.”

I stopped humming. They sang it again. It was the bridge. Of course they were going to sing it at least fifteen more times.

I was not ‘so in love’ as to let someone obliterate my life with love raging like a fire, so I did not sing.

Instead, I stopped, and I pondered.

Imagine allowing yourself to love someone so much that you would welcome them taking your life and wiping it away like a flood, or devouring your senses like a fire. That sounded foolish. From my skewed view of being in love, it was pretty awful. You get all googly-eyed with someone only for that feeling to take away your logical senses and therefore allowing your mind to be clouded with that person and only that person. There’s a crush, there’s liking someone, and then there’s being in love. Why were so many people singing this bridge so effortlessly? Like they didn’t really care to be completely swept away? Either they were stupid and didn’t know what they were getting into, or they were stupid because they did know what they were getting into. Thankfully, I wasn’t the only one with this concern. Evan, the worship leader, voiced my thoughts.

“I want you to stop, and think about what you’re singing right now. Fires devour and floods destroy. We’re not asking for a spark or a sprinkling. You are so madly in love with God that you’re allowing him to come into your life and absolutely destroy it. Think on it, and sing with meaning.”

Exactly. 

But yet these people still sang. I mean, I understood why: they were passionately in love with God and wanted their entire lives to be about him. But at the same time, I didn’t understand why. Why would you let someone take control of your entire life? That took tons of faith, which apparently, I was lacking.

Evan and Erika queued another song. Another bridge.

‘Fix your eyes on this one truth, God is madly in love with you.’ 

Another wave of astonishment. 

Not only was I supposed to be madly in love with God, but He was madly in love with me?

Ew.

There was too much love going around. I could feel this tug, though. Mainly in my tear ducts, but also in my heart.

“Yeah, I love you.”

‘Nope. Nope nope nope.’ 

“Yeah. I do. You can accept that.”

***

Cut to the rest of the week’s worship. Every morning at worship, I would stop myself from emoting too greatly. There was crazy resistance to keep my hands in my pockets and hum along while everyone else was singing and dancing. Something in me so badly wanted to join them, but my flesh kept me grounded. This continued the whole week. 

And then, on the seventh day, the walls came tumbling down. (Ironic, isn’t it?)

It was the last full day of camp, and AIM had plenty planned for us. Squad wars, eating black fermented duck eggs, baptisms, team role meetings… It was quite the goodbye. We didn’t have worship that morning since they were saving it for after baptisms. We had squad wars that evening, and then rushed inside to let people change for their baptisms.

That was a sweet time. The Lord was extremely present and the change that people underwent was visible and precious. During that time of having almost the entire two squads baptized, I watched as the Lord softened hearts and healed minds and gave a renewed power to those around me. These people were making public declarations of what their fears, shame, sin and flesh were hindering them from. And God took that opportunity to open mine as well. Letting him love me and have complete control over my life didn’t sound that bad. He knew way better than me, anyway. This wasn’t an earthly relationship, where fears of having someone’s love for me diminish would hinder me from giving fully. This wasn’t a relationship where I would have to fear being manipulated. I wouldn’t have to worry about God abusing me or ever leaving me. He was Safety. He wouldn’t reach a time in his life where opportunities called him elsewhere. I am His #1 priority, and he had shown me that in the ways that I needed to be shown. 

Baptisms ended. There were lots of hugs, lots of smiles and laughter and tears and rejoicing and praises and prayers and shivering people. As those who had gotten baptized changed into something warmer, the rest of us prayed together and walked into the worship room. Our souls were joyful. We danced and sang and it was a glimpse of God’s heaven: continual rejoicing and praises. When it came time to worship, everyone settled down, and I approached the lady who had been looking right through me this whole week. 

“Could you… teach me how to dance… like you do when you worship? I really want to, but I just don’t know how.”

Beth Landt smiled her profound smile at me and hugged me. 

“You just have to do what’s coming from your heart,” she paused. “God loves you, sweet Sarah.”

I smiled a watery smile underneath my blanket of long hair that had covered my face. Worship began, and of course, the first song we sing is “Good Grace” by Hillsong United.

“God is madly in love with you.”

I broke. It felt like a shattering of all the walls around me. Just like the walls of Jericho that Joshua so faithfully circled around, the trumpets blew and the foundational walls of stone had turned to playing cards, blown down effortlessly. 

“Let the praise go up as the walls come down,” everyone sang around me.

The walls were indeed coming down as the praise rose. I stood there, trembling, crying. Even if it was just a little bit, I understood just a tad more that God was crazy about me. He was Love. He knew better than anyone how to love me. I saw everything in me that no one was ever allowed to see before. Those back home, the people here, old friends that had loved me so well… no one knew me better than Him. 

Worship continued far into the night. I allowed myself to become undone. I sang louder than I had ever sang before.

“He’s singing to you,” sweet Beth whispered to me, “that rhythm is his heart beating for you.”

The tempo quickened. From a gentle “understand that I love you” to an upbeat celebration of “YES! I LOVE YOU! KNOW THAT!” 

The night’s atmosphere of praise never ended. The dancing, the singing, the drums: all a picture of how the Lord was moving and our recognition of his greatness. We broke down into the Church Clap, dancing and breathing heavy as we celebrated our community together. 

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A beautiful picture of God’s love. I want to stay in that moment forever. I want to grow from the re-learning of Love.

Something I’ve realized though since I’ve returned home is that my walls are coming back up. Back in “the real world,” I easily resort to letting myself and only myself help me. I still struggle to love people in the way that they feel best loved. I still struggle understanding the idea of “falling in love.” I still don’t receive people’s love well sometimes. My lack of love this year has ruined many relationships. Committing to the Lord fully– allowing him to be someone I become absolutely obsessed with– will be a challenge I am ready to experience this upcoming year. Will I resist? Most definitely. But hopefully I’ll experience a kind of love that I’m unable to resist, and eventually become just as obsessed with Him as He is with me. Hopefully I’ll learn that a public declaration of love is essential. Becoming vulnerable is essential. Accepting people’s flaws and not defending my own is essential. Hopefully I’ll become like God: Loving. Loving everyone unconditionally. Full of wisdom, a friend forever. A picture of the Kingdom Life is a life overflowing with Love.