Learning to Love, Part 1

A restaurant in Central Asia--May my love be large and expansive like this beautiful place!

In his book on marriage, What Did You Expect?, author Paul David Tripp shares some of the best wisdom Jim and I have read regarding getting along with people in any relationship. Period. With a family of 15 (soon to be 19 as we add four siblings through adoption), Jim and I are keenly aware of our need to live well with others!

In fact, we've taken Tripp's definition of love as our family's. He boils down so much Scripture into one powerful (and sometimes powerfully convicting!) sentence.

In the next few posts, I'm going to share Tripp's break down of each of the components of his definition. I need the reminder. If you do too, may you be blessed!

"Love is willing self-sacrifice for the good of another that does not require reciprocation or that the other person being loved is deserving."

Paul Tripp, Crossway, pg. 188 (hardback)

Tripp says:

"Love is willing. Jesus said, 'No one takes [my life] from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.' (John 10:18 ESV). The decisions, words, and actions of love always grow in the soil of a willing heart. You cannot force a person to love. If you are forcing someone to love, by the very nature of the act you are demonstrating that this person doesn't in fact love." (pg. 188) 

What if my heart is, when I'm really honest, unwilling? As many commandments as there are to love in the Bible (Please, if you're not familiar with them, get out your Bible and go on a hunt!), it's time to fall to my knees, confess my sin, and ask God to make me willing. And then ask again, and again, and... Just like the nagging widow (Luke 18:1-8). We know this is a prayer He will answer because we are praying for His will to be done. And, what He commands, He enables!

Vacation = Family Glue

Our family's vacation has been everything we'd dreamed it would be and so very much more. I want to write more and post more photos, but it's bedtime on our last evening. "Real" life begins again tomorrow so sleep is important tonight.

For now, I'll share one photo that captures how blessed I feel to have had this special time with my beloved family (sans Anna & Aaron and our Jaynie). This particular picture was part of a photo shoot I did with our youngest four while here, but the photograph symbolizes for me all the sibling bonding that went on this week. With our still fresh adoption of Daria, Alexander and Oksana, more time for all of us to get to know one another is truly a gift from a kind and generous Father.

I guess I'd title this photo "A Mother's Paradise".

Photo of the Day: A Good Listener

This photo of our youngest two daughters was taken in April, just after church. We'd had our first thunderstorm of the season the night before, and it was the first storm of that type since we'd adopted Oksana (r) four months earlier.

Here, Oksana (6) had just used hand motions to describe the thunderstorm to Amy (8). Amy is demonstrating an understanding of what her sister is trying to communicate, despite Oksana's lack of English. Oksana's face radiates her sense of satisfaction in Amy's response to her narration of the lightning flashes and thunder booms.

Amy's ongoing ability to "get" what Oksana is trying to say even when some of the rest of us don't has cemented a strong friendship between them.