Love Does.

 So, I may or may not have just done something rather crazy. Well, for ME it is crazy. I just called and left a message on a complete strangers answering machine. This was not just an ordinary local call to a friend of a friend of a friend of mine. I just left a message on the answering machine of the man who's name is written on the cover of the book in the photo above. Now, why the heck did you do that you may ask? Well, the best answer I can come up with at this moment in time is that I guess that is what love does...

You may recall that a few 'posts' ago I mentioned how I wanted to write about this book that I have been reading.. Well, this is the book, and it is called LOVE DOES.

I happened upon this book in a rather round-about way, well, a few ways actually. The first time I heard about the book was from a mother of one of my volunteers at camp this summer. We were chatting in my hall-way office as she was dropping off her daughter, and we were chatting about what we were reading at the time. I had been reading a few different books and was recommending them to her, and she mentioned this book, love does. Well, I wrote down the title and to be honest with you, it slipped my mind. Like Bob mentions in his book, I like many others said 'Bob who??' but didn't think much of it..

The second time I heard about the book, was from my friend Jenni. Side note:  I have been thinking of getting a tattoo for quite some time. Now, you may be thinking 'gee alli, what a rebel' but I really want to get something that is meaningful to me. I don't want to get a tattoo just to get a tattoo. But I want something that will be a reminder to me when I see it. Something that will challenge me, and remind me of the One who loves me. I happen to be a slight hippy and whenever I hear or see the word love I gravitate towards it.. So I had been thinking about getting either 'love is...' or 'amor es...' tattooed on my foot, near my pinky toe on my right foot, to be a reminder to me about what love is. Like in 1 Corinthians 13 it goes through the list of descriptions of what love IS, love is patient and kind, etc.. because quite often I recite that in my mind. I had been drawing it in different styles on my foot for months now, trying it out, you know, not trying to make a rash decision. Well, Jenni saw it on my foot one day and said, "Alli, you should get Love Does written on your foot". I tried it out, and well I liked it! (completely forgetting about the chat I had with the mother in my hallway about a month earlier) Jenni then told me that I should realllly read this book called Love Does by a guy named Bob Goff! I listened to the description about the book for the second time, and then something clicked in my mind, and I said to Jenni, Hey I think I heard that name before! I figured though, that before I get something permanently tattooed on my body, I should probably read the book where the name came from FIRST just to be safe.

   Once I got home from camp, I bought the book. I was in a place where I needed rest. I needed refreshment, so after a busy summer at camp, I laid out my Ecuador blanket in the back yard one day and started to read. I read the intro, and I knew I was in for it. I was hooked. The book was flowing with a cascade of love. Love that was natural, beautiful, effortlessly lived, limitless. Love like the love that I had seen so many times in the life of Jesus.

This summer, I had decided to read the Message and just the Message while I was doing my personal devotions. I decided to read through the book of Luke, without the distractions of verses and and numbers which normally stuck out to me in my sunday-school-raised mind. I wanted to walk alongside Jesus, seeing things as He did, see people as He did, I wanted to learn to love like Jesus did. Or at least, get a glimpse of what that looked like. There were many times that I had to stop mid-story while on my Luke journey, and breathe. I would get choked up because of this whimsy almost contagious love that I could feel from Jesus as He interacted with people.

As I began to read this book, I began to read stories in modern day about what living that life of love looks like in 'modern' day...real life.

I have known that my purpose is first to Love Christ and then Love my neighbours. I know that because that is what my Jesus has asked of me. But sitting there in the sunshine in the quiet of my own yard, reading about the lives of those around me who genuinely live that out, where it crosses borders, when it boggles your mind, when you just have to sit teary-eyed and say 'wow'...it simply blows your mind and fills your thoughts with a myriad of dreams and hopes as to what life would look like if it were full, pregnant with a love that is so contagious and whimsy that there was no way that Jesus hadn't saturated Himself in it.

For some of you, this may sound ridiculous, and well, that is okay. But for me, it was beautiful.

I found myself caught in this whimsy beautiful story that was being told by someone who was ready and willing to be available to love whenever and where ever Jesus said it was necessary. I am someone who loves a good story. This book is bursting at the seams with stories where as you read them, and are completely immersed in it, all you can do is sit there, jaw dropped, craving more.

I really don't know what made me pick up the phone tonight and call. I don't really know what I am expecting either. I don't want to get myself excited because really, I don't know what I should be excited for. There is something in me though that makes me just want to sit down, have a cup of tea and share life with this man, because that is what love does. 

As I've been learning more and more over the past few years, and months is that love is an action. It doesn't sit still, it doesn't hide away, it listens, hurts, smiles, and acts, it moves and it does what is needed because it is a verb. I came across this song a few weeks ago while I was in the car with my sister and it stuck out to me. Well, it does have the word love in it, but it is also another way of saying love does. It is called Love is a Verb by John Mayer. What I have been learning more and more is that love doesn't sit still--it is an action--it moves. When I take steps, my foot will constantly remind me that love is an action--it takes steps--it DOES things--God is love, and God is moving, I am reminded to walk in-step with Christ in love. Walk humbly with my God.

It is now two thirty in the morning, so I should probably head to bed. However I encourage YOU tonight, to find this book and read it. I dare you to do something out of love today, step out and pick up a piece of litter off the ground. Go buy that homeless person a sub or a sandwich. Go rake someone's lawn. Go DO something out of love. Whether you get recognized for it or not, do something from your heart because you know that it is the loving thing to do. Because my friends, that is what love does.