*Seems I've been psyching myself too much that I forgot that God loves you as much as He loves all of us. Here's something for you, and retroactively for me as well. God bless you.*
"Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you."
- Exodus 20:12
With the very variable schedule that I have at work, opportunities for me to talk with my parents are very, very rare. Usually it's once or twice, or if I'm lucky, thrice a month that I am able to really go ahead and tell them what's really up in my life. It's especially rare if a certain event would coerce me to go ahead and make these sorts of gatherings happen. I thank God so much that time was given for us to have a good chat a few hours ago. By the way, if you haven't treated your parents to a good meal yet, I implore with you to try it at least once. There are so many things that you could discover through doing this. There are so many ideas and revelations to be gained by both parties, which would ultimately end up in what the verse says: "You may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you."
If there's bitterness in your heart towards your mother or your father, these conversations are perfect times to open them up. If you lift this whole thing up to GOd before anything happens, you can be sure to see a lot happen in that amount of time that you share with them. It's such a beautiful thing to see God work in the hearts of people right before your eyes as you show them more and more that you love them simply because God loved you first.
News flash: If you haven't been aware of it, I would just like to take this time, especially this time, to go ahead and just emphasize to you the great love that God has for you. The verse John 3:16, which goes, "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that he who believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life," has probably rang through your ears at least once or twice in your life before. Please understand that this translated to me reduced to tears a moment back simply because I was in total awe as a result in simply imagining that Jesus Christ, the sinless and blameless Jesus Christ, suffered through all torment and pain that the world could dish out to Him in the highest level, and through all this, He was thinking of me. He knew my name, He knows how wretched I was, He knows all the the pain that I have given and have gone through, and He still thought of me, through all the punishment that He had to receive. As I kept thinking about it, it was so amplified in my thoughts that it made me realize how insignificant I am in this reality without recognizing the absolute and eternal God, and the awesome and powerful sacrifice He did for the awful sins and atrocities of countless generations, the countless number of human souls that have walked the face of this earth that He created.
My friend, I know this may seem so redundant, but the times show that time is running out. I implore to you, my dear reader, to just believe that He did the same thing for you, and for each and every other person here on earth. You may be the worst sort of man or woman on the face of this earth, but I am here to tell you that God loves you as much as He loves me, simply because the price of all the filth that you have been through has been paid even before the thought of your existence was conceived.
...All that He asks is that believe. Surrender everything, EVERYTHING to Him, and watch as He works to take away all the burdens and all the consequences of all the sins that you have committed, past, present, and future, one day at a time.
"God our Savior... wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth"
- 1 Timothy 2:3-4
Please think about it. I simply cannot imagine living the life I have right now had I not thought about it myself. You cannot find true peace, true happiness anywhere apart from God.
This is where love comes from. I heard in church that true love comes from God who loves us first. If you love God before anything else, you will never go wrong in the resultant love that you would give to anyone else.
This has been revealed to me as I expressed my love for my parents simply by taking the tab for lunch. Behold how God keeps giving you reasons to love your fellow man as you love Him more and more. With God's love truly in your life, there is simply no room for bitterness, for hatred, for jealousy, for envy, for anything that the enemy can use to drag you down.
God is love. And love conquers all.
God bless you, dear reader.