Made Complete

 "May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully.  Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God."  Ephesians 3:19

    This verse, though I've read it before, really hit me.  What really stuck out is the words "made complete".  Completeness matters in our culture.  We work for the satisfaction of completing a project, we devour shows and books until the story is complete, we take classes and strive until our degree is complete, and we buy and spend until our collection is complete and we are satisfied.  We start an adoption and expect it to be completed (ouch, real honesty stings sometimes).  But when I read these words in Ephesians, I see the word complete, and deep within me I know this to be true; only the love of Christ completes me.  

    How does God's love complete?  I am complete in His love because I cannot add to it by striving to do more or take away from it by failing to do something.  I can't work harder and earn more of his love because it was full and complete from the beginning.  His love isn't poured out on me because I have been good enough and do all the right things.  His love was given to me without me ever doing anything to deserve it.  

    Of course, this is why Paul, the writer of Ephesians, says, "it is too great to understand fully."  Because this complete kind of love doesn't exist in our human interactions.  The closest thing to it in our world is the love between a parent and child or husband and wife, but even today we have plenty of broken examples of both of those relationships.  Yet God's love is complete, it is perfect, and it cannot be undone or broken.  And THIS is why it can make me complete.  

    In God's love, I can find all that I have been aching for.  In God's love, I find rest from all the doing and striving the world asks of me.  In God's love, I find acceptance and understanding without hiding or pretending.  In God's love, I find peace from the storms of life and the confusion of this world.  In God's love, I find joy because it is beautiful to be loved without having to do anything to earn it or worry about losing it.  In God's love, there is hope that this is not all there is but there is so much more.  

    If I pause for a moment and dwell on this kind of love that no one person could ever show me, it is truly hard to comprehend.  But if I pause and let His love wash over me and believe that it is true, there I find completeness, purpose, and peace.  I tried to share these thoughts with my daughter by saying that His love completes us because He knows everything about us and loves us.  He knows what we hide, what is deep in our hearts, what we don't say or think out loud, yet He loves us.  My daughter could articulate what I think most of us fall into believing, "I know that He loves me, but I still think sometimes He would love me more if...".  

    God will love me or love me more when I____(fill in the blank).  That kind of understanding is incomplete.  We put our standards, our checklist, our bar to measure up to, and our society's lens on the love of God.  But if we could just strip away those standards and allow God's love to meet us where we are, if we could think about His love and let our minds be blown that there is no measuring up or strings attached, then we could just begin to grasp the depth of His love.  

    Over two years ago I named this blog web address "Love Never Leaves the One Behind".  Partly because it is a song lyric I loved, but also naively because I believed God's love was equipping me to love a child that had been left behind in China.  Of course, I did love a little girl in China, and I always will.  But this journey was never about me and how I love.   

    I have spent 7 months thinking about what to share, if anything at all, on this platform.  In some ways, I had hoped if I waited long enough I would have an update on what our family was doing next and how God was using us in some other child's life.  I can't say I didn't try other things, research, and strive to be something to someone else.  I never went into this adoption wanting to achieve something for myself, but out of failure, I had to do something!  But that is not God's way.  

    So to be completely honest, I began this blog back on 6/22/22 but could not bring myself to publish it.  I still did not believe for myself what I was writing.  Now today I opened it up and although I don't always get it right, I believe nothing I can come up with, strive for, or accomplish will do.  God doesn't see the adoption as a failure, he doesn't want me to try again and get it right this time.  He doesn't want my purpose to be wrapped up in what I do for Him or for people.  He loves me too much to leave me behind in that broken way of thinking.  And today I know that living loved by God and learning to really know that love is enough, and nothing else I could seek after will do.  John 15:9 says, "I have loved you even as the Father has loved me.  Remain in my love." 

    I would've liked to have some amazing way to end these thoughts, something that ties it all together in a neat bow completing this chapter.  I guess that goes back to the idea that we like completeness...even complete thoughts.  But that isn't going to happen today.  I am not complete yet, I am a work in progress.  But I am loved completely and that's where I will remain. 

                 "Oh, that we might know the Lord! Let us press on to know him, and he will respond to us as surely as the coming of dawn or the rain of early spring." Hosea 6:3