I’m easy to fall out of love with

I burned my skin off. Not the, “My coffee is still piping hot on the roof of my mouth burn” or that “I grabbed a plate to quickly from the microwave” burn. I’m talking about the skin hanging on by a thread, spare you the gory details, kind of burn. 

I have made a lot of mistakes in my lifetime, but that day, the day I burned myself I made more than usual, and here they are in a timely order; mistake number one, wearing a tank top that didn’t cover enough of my skin; purposely. Mistake number two was cracking the joke “get that devil screen away from me” each time my team would even mention the word sunscreen, and mistake number three; assuming the 98°F northern Ugandan sun had the same UV rays as a July Chicago day.

Big mistake, huge.

So there I was sitting in my blue chair at the hottest part of the day, with my water bucket to my side to get me wet when I got a little too hot, that should’ve been a warning sign I picked up on, I know I know. But here’s the thing about me, I love, love being tan. It boosts my confidence and my self-esteem and just makes me really really happy, Yep! That’s my flesh talking, pun definitely intended.

I made a rather un-rad mistake that day, and my consequence? Well I missed two days of ministry, lost countless hours of sleep and have cried on and off for the last five days straight. It has controlled every aspect of my day-to-day life, sleeping, ministry, working out and my happiness. I was talking to Jesus out loud yesterday while laying in bed when the girls were at ministry, with my chest in so much pain that it was physically taking away my breath, with swollen eyes permanently closing and a 110°F army barrack I was letting Jesus have it. Off and on in between probably seeming like a crazy person having what sounded like a one-sided conversation with myself, I cracked open a book I’ve been reading.

Everybody always, by Bob Goff; this dude seems so rad, I really relate to his writing style, it’s similar to mine so I love getting lost in his words. This book is all about becoming love and how to love the hard people well, sometimes I take my little blue chair to a quiet place at the refugee camp and read it out loud with a soft quiet but purposeful voice like I am sitting in front of Jesus Christ himself reading him a love story.

I love, loving people. I love falling in love with places and cultures, but I love falling in love with people the most. Not that I can’t wait to marry you love even though that’s nice too, but the falling in love with people’s hearts kind of love. Loving the hard people is something I’ve been learning for the past year and I’m no pro, but my heart has been open to that, loving everyone even the hard ones, but where I have been lacking heavily where the book brought out a lot of conviction, is loving myself after I’ve made a mistake, that’s my hardest feet. My mistakes are many, I’m really hard on myself if I miss a crucial step, or if I let my flesh control decisions, when I fall for the wrong man, when I recite wrong scripture, when I lie, when I belittle myself in front of others, or worse when I let my skin fry off in the northern Ugandan heat. 

Well laying on what I imagine my deathbed would feel like I was staring at my mistakes head on. Stating out loud how many I have made in the past week, hundreds. I need to learn to love myself always. I used to think I was hard to love but then that turned into something deeper.. it was like I was easy to fall in love with, sometimes it happened so quickly and so effortlessly but what seemed even easier, was falling out of love with me. 

I was easy to fall out of love with and trust me I wish I was hard to love instead because I always felt like there was less hurt that way. Losing people is just another Tuesday for me. Being on the race I’ve lost people, I’ve lost people I love a lot, a person I thought I could’ve fallen in love with, friendships that I thought would last a lifetime, and it hurt worse every single time. My mistakes. I laid them all out in a timeline that day on my deathbed and here’s what I learned while having my passionate conversation with God. 

Papa doesn’t see all my mistakes as mistakes, no flipping way. He chooses to see them as opportunities, opportunities for me to learn grow and love Him more. He doesn’t smite me or fall out of love with me when I make a poor decision. Or if I break a promise. Instead He chooses to love me deeper through them because He knows I need it. My chest isn’t the only thing that’s healing, the way I view my worth is changing, the way I show myself the same grace and mercy Papa shows me is evolving and I am becoming more like love, every day. 

You see it’s easy to agree with God, but it’s hard to be like him because our flesh gets in the way sometimes, people who are becoming love, show grace when it seems impossible and I choose to start with me. Catch ya’ll in Romania.