A New Kind of Love

At a party last night, as I was filling my wine glass with water, a friend asked me if I drank.  My response?  "Yes,  I'm pretty freed up, I used to be a bartender. God got me later in life, I have a past." I said with a smile. She grinned back back at me and tried to imagine the me she knows now behind a bar.   As I lay in bed this morning, pondering the conversation and the freedom I mentioned, it got me thinking about the motivating force behind it.  Love.  Not love like we know love.  Our love is performance based.  It's based on give and take.  Our spouses and even to a small degree, whether we admit or not, our children's love is grounded in some level of do for me and I'll do for you, but not our Father's love.  God's love is truly inconceivable to us,  in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.  What does that mean?  Think of the worst thing you've ever done, it's at that moment that God sent His beloved Son to his death for you.  That kind of love is freeing.  Trusting in it is the hard part, that's where faith comes in, and thankfully God is an expert on that and never leaves us hanging.  What relief to know that even on our worst day, someone has our back.  Maybe we could even lift that burden off our spouse, friend, parent or child, and put it back on the Father where it belongs and whose arms are strong enough to carry it and us.  That's my kind of fairy tale.