He loves me outrageously

So another year of MOPs comes to a close today. We had our final MOPs meeting this morning in the form of a fantastic waffle brunch with some amazing time of fellowship and sharing. As we bid farewell to this year, we also bid farewell to our precious mentor mom, Beth. Beth has been an amazing source of genuine, authentic, God-inspired love and support to every one of us this year. She has blessed us over and over again with her wisdom and her messages (that have often spoken straight into the depths of my heart), and beyond that with her true love and concern for each of us. She will be missed tremendously... but she didn't leave without blowing our minds (and speaking to my soul) one last time. And this time she didn't even use her own words. She shared two videos with us, but the one that really shook me up was one with words by Graham Cooke from "Inheritance." In this powerful message I was reminded that God loves me 100%. He loves me exactly as I am, right now. Not the way I want to be, not the way I see myself. But just as I am. He won't love me any more or any less if I change the way that I am, or look, or act. He loves me 100%. Not because of anything I've done. There is nothing I can do to make Him love me more, and nothing I can do that will make Him love me less. Isn't that amazing? He loves me 100%... because He loves me, because He loves me, because He loves me. Because it is His nature to love. He loves me with a radical love that I can not even understand, He loves me outrageously, and He wants me to overflow with that outrageous love and love Him back. But, and this is the part that really struck me, I can only love Him as much as I love myself. Wow.... what terrible limits to set on the outrageous love I could otherwise give back to Him. How can I let my own insecurities and negative self images stand between me and loving my God, who loves me 100%, outrageously, because He just DOES. But the good news is that He wants to set me free from myself. Graham reminds me that God wants to free me from how I see myself, from the smallness of my thinking about myself, from shame, and low self esteem, and despair... He wants to break down every barrier and in His love, to make me feel good about myself.

How amazing is that message? That my God- who has plenty to keep Him busy, wants to take the time to delight in me. He makes Himself available to me, completely, any day, all the time, in every way. He wants to hold me close, to shake up my world, to chase away the things that hold me back. He wants me to call on Him, so that He can shower me with his 100%, unconditional, always in abundance love. Because He just loves me. And in the self loathing, in the despair, in the sorrow that I allow myself to wallow in, I am only cheating Him by limiting the love I can return to Him. I am hurting Him by not appreciating and rejoicing in His love and His delight in me. And if only I will allow Him in, He'll chase away all of the fear, dobut, insecurity, and pain. He'll fill me up as only He can, and He'll show me how to receive His outrageous love. He'll widen my ability to acecpt it, and He'll expand my area to share it. And His outrageous, life-changing love will flow freely through me, in a way I have yet to even imagine. Wow.