The First Love

I'd never seen an Easter sunrise in the mountains before-- beautiful. Village members came in their traditional hand-woven shirts and dresses to celebrate this special occasion, though only about 3 people in the little church building (besides our team) knew what the term “Easter” meant (those who knew being the traveling pastor with his wife and son). The sunrise service was followed not by the breakfast casserole, fruits, and tea that typically piggy-back the sunrise service to which my family is accustomed.  Oh no, we dined on rice and ferns, the typical meal this time of year (as a short hike into the forest can provide your greens) seasoned with the joys of remembering Christ's life. And it was delicious. Thus began a week of Easter services. We spoke in every village along our path, sharing the story, inviting people to draw pictures of what Easter is about--- finding that for many of the older generation, this was the first time they had ever drawn anything on paper. Crosses were a favorite, but really it was the explanations of what they had drawn that were so profound. I am guilty of devaluing this story, having heard it over and over and over again. I forget the worth of the cross—yet how amazing to celebrate the greatest love story ever told with people who had never celebrated Easter!

View from my sleeping mat one morning.

We were there for a week. We rode into the mountains gloriously in the back of a pickup— feeling like real chariot riders as we bounced our way through the mountain road that is only wide enough for one car at a time and only passable by truck and motorcycle (and that only about 6 months out of the year). From our base village, Tiboakee, we went on by foot to visit about 5 additional villages, staying with local believers along the way and eating whatever came out of the forest. The nights were cool in the bamboo huts, though the stars were for the most part tucked away behind a veil of smoke rising from the burned-off hillsides. It was sad to see so much forest be destroyed, but I know that new life in the form of cultivated food is coming from those ash-filled slopes. People must eat.

There is much I could say about this trip. It was refreshing, beautiful, and humbling. It was filled with ferns, rice, dried fish, and chili peppers. It was spilling over with laughter and songs in both known and not yet known languages (to me). It was marked by God’s hand. And Lord willing, I will be back one day for a longer period of time.

I am now in the United States once again, a very different reality from the mountains of northern Thailand. A lot is different, a lot remains the same. I am reminded of when I left. 

The First Love, the perfect love, the love that casts out fear.

God’s love, not ours, can fully redeem our wasted years. 

Our love imperfect, marred, though being sanctified by His grace,

We so often fail to reflect the First Love and seek His face.

The “love” most know is one of power, ambition, and frequently coercion—

Even the sweetest love has its shadow-side, and all too often, perversion.

But the radical good news is that the second love is not the First,

No, not the true love, the grace-filled love, and for this perfect love we thirst.

Our mission: to reflect the First Love to a broken and hurting earth.

Realize our own brokenness, let the Healer recreate us with new birth.

All His work, we know, for this plan we could never design,

Sending us two by two, in faith to walk, calling us from the side lines.

To the world we may look as if we are moving nowhere but down:

Away from wealth, away from fame, away from comforts all around.

Yet in this lies the paradox, for as we seek ourselves less,

We find even deeper mines of blessing, peace and joy in God our rest.

I wrote the above on the eve of my flight to Bangkok, back in September 2014, as a reflection on a book I had recently read about God's call for us to love. I have gained some perspective since then, mostly about the challenges and complexities of seeking social justice in our world. I have also seen the necessity of it. We can love people, one by one by one. And God does the heart-work. The true transformation comes when He starts pulling down the veil in each of our hearts, exposing the need in each of us for a Savior. For true love. I have been challenged there, in Bangkok, to consider how I see the poor. To consider how my decisions impact those who are on the fringes of society. And oh, what a long way I have left to travel on this road of understanding and truly feeling God’s heartbeat in my own chest! I have had my worth challenged, my faith challenged, my relationships challenged.

And little by little, I know God is shaping me—because, well, I am mud. I am clay. Yet a pot formed by the Master Potter can have confidence approaching the kiln. It was formed properly; it was made to endure the heat. It will be refined, yes, the heat may hurt, yes, but it will impart new qualities as well, and what emerges will have a new, beautiful, and more lasting form. I’m praying God continues His work of shaping me this summer and beyond. Perfect love casts out fear, and I would say that the Potter loves us with the perfect kind of love. The First Love.