In love again.

A weeks before my moment in California hills, I shot a wedding with Mike Colon in Atlanta (which I will be posting soon!), but it was also an honor to shoot for the sweet couple, Rosanna & Jared, who I got to know personally in Hawaii at Mike's workshop. Rosanna also lost dad a few years ago and has been such a sweetheart in providing encouragement along the way as I went through the same thing earlier this year. And Jared, without knowing, also has provided encouragement as well, in a different way.

At their rehearsal dinner, Jared stood up in front of his closest friends and family, not only talking about his love for Rosanna, but also boldly sharing about when he first "fell in love with the Lord"... and those words right there really stood out to me.

Wow.

Fell IN love with the Lord.

Sure, I love the Lord and gave my life to Him many years ago, but was I still IN love with the Lord?

And as hard as it is to admit, I hadn't been. I was simply going through the motions trying to simply survive the heartbreak of losing the first man I ever loved. Choosing things I wanted over what He wanted and knew was His best for me. Not making time for Him in prayer at the beginning of each day like I used to, and instead letting busyness take priority. Getting caught up in ways of the world. Trying to numb my pain with things just weren't fulfilling and instead caused more pain. All those little ways Satan creeps in to take our eyes off the Lord and to doubt Him and His goodness.

I realized I was treating my relationship with the Lord like I was my relationship with the gym. One night I was complaining to Mark about how I just didn't have time to work out and how guilty I felt for taking the time to work out when I had so much work on my plate to do for my clients. And he responded back, "Actually, you should look at it like you should feel guilty for NOT taking time to take care of yourself. If you don't take care of yourself first and build up your strength, everything else will fall apart around you." And how true I've been seeing it is the same with our spiritual "workout." God designed us to NEED to start our days with Him, to find our strength in Him, to reconnect with Him just like any other love relationship. Because when we don't, everything else will fall apart around us.

In diving back into my Bible study, I really loved this passage and analogy Jesus talked about in John 15:

"I am the vine, and you are the branches. If any remain in me and I remain in them, they produce much fruit. But without me, they can do nothing. If any do not remain in me, they are like the branch that is thrown away and then dies. People pick up dead branches, throw them into the fire and burn them. If you remain in me and follow my teachings, you can ask anything you want, and it will be given to you. You should produce much fruit and show that you are my followers, which brings glory to the Father. I loved you as the Father loved me. Now remain in my love. I have obeyed my Father's commands, and I remain in His love. In the same way, if you obey My commands, you will remain in My love. I have told you these things so that you can have the same joy I have and so that your joy will be the fullest possible joy."

I really love the words in this video, "I Need You to Love Me" by the Christian group Barlow Girl. Relistening to the song again, it just makes me teary eyed, but in a beautiful way. May your day be filled with Jesus' sweet love too!



Video from tangle.com