Love and Acceptance

“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” Psalm 147:3

Growing up in Georgia, living mostly with her grandma because her parents were divorced, Lindsay’s dad remarried and expected Lindsay to be perfect. Lindsay eventually realized she did not have to seek acceptance and love from her dad because she already was loved and accepted by God. She moved to the Bronx expecting adventure, but she ended up having her life changed by her sixth grade students. Many of her students lived in shelters, having witnessed violence resulting in death, and having been filled with empty promises of love and relationships with their parents. They were worn, weathered, and not trusting of love. On the first day of the school year she told her students that she loved them already. Lindsay informed her students that they could make straight a’s and have good behavior all year, or have detention three times a week; she would not love them any less. They could not earn her love and acceptance. Then she spent the year trying to prove it to them. She believed God wanted them to rest and have their hearts healed. Her hope was that they would figure out that God loves them so much more than she ever could. Lindsay paints a beautiful picture of God’s love for us. It is comforting to know that we do not have to do anything to earn God’s love and acceptance because Christ gave us His grace on the cross, so that nothing can separate us from Him. “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our lord.” (Romans 8:37-39)

Prayer
Gracious God, we thank You for Your love and acceptance, which we did not have to earn. Help us to love others like You love us. Amen