Life Verse

 

                A few days ago, I read Yvonne’s post about her life verse, and it set my mind spinning on my own life verse!

                Before I tell you about mine, let me pause to explain the idea of a life verse to you, if you don’t know. (Yvonne also writes well about that if you check out her thoughts.) I know not everyone loves the idea of choosing a life verse, and to be honest, I didn’t set out to find one. It just found its way to me.

                A life verse is simply a verse (or two) from Scripture that hold special meaning and offer a reminder of something God has done or a specific way we hope to live our days as we follow Him.

                Mine came to me back in the desert days, when I felt the gut punch of loss and deep soul hurt. I don’t remember how I stumbled upon the verse, but I remember that when I found it, God pressed on my heart that this was how He wanted me to live my life, day in and day out. I marked the verses and memorized them, hoping to keep the words at the front of my mind so they could drive my actions.

                I memorized these words from Proverbs 3:3-4 in the NIV: Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. Then you will win favor and a good name in the sight of God and man.

                Perhaps this verse caught my attention so profoundly because I knew how it felt when love left me, and I didn’t want that to be my story toward others. The admonition to HOLD to love and faithfulness felt important to me in ways it never had before, back then.

                Even though I felt the ache of loss, I knew that in my future, I wanted my relationships to be filled with love and faithfulness. I wanted to be fiercely loyal to those around me, so they never doubted my love for or faithfulness to them.

                Moving so often, like we have, has tested this for me, in practicality, anyway. It hasn’t changed a thing in my heart about my feelings toward people in my life, but it’s true that geographical changes also change the natural ability to spend time with people the way you did when you lived close and could be present in daily life regularly. I know many people equate love and faithfulness with physical presence, and they fear out-of-sight-out-of-mind and the natural consequence of lost love and faithfulness. I’m sure most of my friends have no idea just how often I think of them, pray for them, and miss them, even when I don’t see them regularly.

                In my marriage to Ryan, I work hard to tell him every day, multiple times a day, how much I love him and am faithful to the commitment we made 12+ years ago. I don’t want him to ever think my love and faithfulness have changed.

                My prayer is that the demonstration of my love and faithfulness – to anyone – will be so deeply part of who I am that they are written on my heart and bound around my neck.

                Winning favor and a good name in the sight of man isn’t the same as winning a popularity contest. I don’t need (or want) to be known in a well-known kind of way. I just want those who do know me to know that I live with love and faithfulness. I want that to be my reputation.

                So that’s my life verse…one that I hope continues to drive the way I live, each day, for the rest of my days.