Lent Day 22--Love Does Not Boast

I think of them, and my neck starts to tense. You know the people I'm talking about, right? The ones who give you their resumes while you try to find a gracious way to exit the scene, or maybe it's the ones whose Christmas letters sound like a propaganda page convincing you that, yes, indeed, they and their family can unsnarl rush our traffic, cure the common cold, and fix the national debt. Their lives are bigger and their accomplishments better, and you leave their little self-marketing session ready to never lay eyes on them again...or ready to never lay eyes on yourself again.

Do you want to know what I did that rocked the nation last year? I sat in kayaks with people I love in the middle of a lake...and watched the sun go down. I cooked hotdogs for friends. Wait. Not exactly true. The husband/dad of the friendly family cooked the hotdogs. BUT, I laid them out to defrost, so that has to count for something. I told my children I loved them every.single.day. I prayed...a LOT. I tried to encourage friends who were tired. I paid my bills. I laughed. I read some books. I helped out here and there. I listened. I handed Kleenex. I got on my face and cried for people. I went to bed with a smile on my face because my life is so good the joy in my heart had to leak out somewhere, and a smile seemed like a good answer.

Okay, so maybe that didn't actually rock the nation. Okay, so it really didn't even make the gossip circuit in the neighborhood.

For years, I would look at lists like that side by side, and that you-are-so-insignificant voice would start its whispering and tearing at pieces of me, and I would listen. I mean, how was I supposed to say, "Oh, no, I am significant. It's just no one knows it."

But it isn't about what everyone else knows. It's about what *I* know.

I know love doesn't boast because love doesn't have to prove its value. Love doesn't have to show itself as better or more important. It doesn't have to prove it is important at all.

Love says, "I'm valuable, and I know it,

and even if no one else realizes it, I can and will still live my valuable life."

So I didn't make the news defrosting hotdogs. That doesn't mean I didn't make a difference.

Jesus didn't come to save the world. He came to save me, and unfortunately, the world news is not plastered with stories of what Jesus did for me today. Nonetheless, what He did is important to me. Love incarnate isn't filling the newspaper, but He's filling my world. He wasn't sent to make headlines. He was sent to be my lifeline. He has a purpose, and I'm it, and even if no one else knows what He does for me, He knows what He does for me is priceless.
...Who He is in my life is priceless.
...Who He is in my world is priceless.

...Who I am in the world He made...is priceless.

Maybe others don't know the priceless things I do. It's okay. It doesn't change who I am. I'm still the priceless me making the important difference in the world He determined needed someone like me.

And you are just as priceless, just as important, and just as needed as I am. The fact that you are here proves it...and even if the natinoal news doesn't get the memo, I know. He knows. I hope you know because your knowing will be what makes all the difference in your living big, and your living big makes a different.