Three ways to show LOVE

Ephesians 4:32 - Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

If God is LOVE, I learn from Him how to display love. If I meditate on how He first loved me, I realize so much more about love. 

I mean, really think about it. If you know even a glimmer of the LOVE of God, compare that to wordly love. Love that we see in the movies, read about in books or witness between people in our lives. The love I see around me is often fake, based on material things and impatient. Fictional love in movies and books is uncomplicated, contrived, forceful.

God's LOVE looks so different than that. I realize that even when I was a hot mess, LOVE was patient, kind and gentle. God wasn't demanding or in my face. He also never left me, even when I left Him. He didn't dwell on my past mistakes. He forgave and forgot. He went out of His way to be kind to me, allowing me to understand my identity and be the person He created and even to serve Him in ways that bring joy to me. He even sent His son to die for me. That's sacrificial and complete and mysterious and amazing!

So, if we strive to show LOVE to others, we share with them the LOVE that God gave us personally. Here are three ways based on my personal knowledge of God to shower LOVE on each other: 

1. Be patient. That means we can't expect immediate results from our love of others. We can't throw a fit when we don't get our way in love. Are we even supposed to "get our way" when it comes to love? We need to set down our expectations. We need to put others above ourselves, even when they don't deserve it. Remember, God didn't rush you into a decision to follow Him, and we would be wise not to rush others into .... well, anything at all. Trust God when your intentions seem to be falling flat. 

 2. Be kind. Often when we are called to LOVE someone in Christian ways, it's someone who is hard to love. LOVE them anyway. Go out of your way to show kindness. Find out their love language (there are five: acts of service, words of affirmation, receiving gifts, quality time and physical touch) and use them to remind them that they are worthy of LOVE. Do this even when they don't deserve it. Do this especially when they are hard to love. That's the LOVE of our Father, who loves us even in our sin, even when we don't deserve His kindness. 

3. Be gentle. Don't remind others constantly of the reasons they are a hot mess. Don't point out their sins, their stumblings, their mistakes especially when they never asked you to play this role in their lives. Simply point them to Jesus, and let Him do the judging. Think about it: Did God reveal your sins to you BEFORE you were in a relationship with Him? Of course He didn't. Don't be the judge and jury for anyone, unless of course they have asked you to help them with their sins. A gentle love encourages and lifts up. It doesn't tear down and hate.

All of these have one thing in common: God. Submit to Him. Submission is not the negative, miserable, forceful thing our world tries to teach us it is. Submitting requires wisdom and grace. It's hard, but it's so worth it. Submission to God puts Him in control. When we trust Him, we are empowered to be the expression of LOVE He wants to reflect of Himself in our world. It's a beautiful thing. 

Finally, read 1 Corinthians 13. But each time you see the word "love," substitute God in its place. This is a little exercise my friend Jan Koch does with the Mighty Strong Girls spa. It's pretty powerful. Get your Bible, and read it aloud. It will remind you of how wonderful, beautiful and amazing the LOVE of God is, and who doesn't need that reminder?

Gluten....it's gotta go!

     So it seems after an eight-week gluten-free trial earlier this year, this little protein that shows up most commonly in wheat is the culprit that has been wreaking havoc on my gut for the last nine years. 
     GLUTEN. 
     The very thing I scoffed at years ago. The very thing I was so thankful wasn't "my problem" is very much my problem. Ha! 
     I didn't want it to be my problem because I didn't want to give up bread, pancakes, cookies, brownies, etc. 
     Countless emergency room visits and (pardon the TMI here) horrendous, excruciating painful gas left me doubled over in pain for days -- strung together for weeks of misery. Sometimes I couldn't get out of bed the pain was so bad!
     This gluten-free thing all started when I found a study of 275 or so endometriosis patients who did a gluten-free diet for 12 months. After a year, 75 percent of them were nearly pain free! 
     That's all I needed to hear. Early this year, when discussing my options once again with my doctor, I was determined to avoid surgery and drastic treatments for endometriosis -- mostly because it just keeps coming back, even after surgery. If I couldn't be pain-free with surgery, what was the point? I wanted a permanent solution. I craved long-lasting healing. 
     So I cut out all gluten from my diet for four weeks, which turned into six for safe measure and then eight. 
     I certainly felt no different after that time, so when I was out one weekend working on Mighty Strong Girls interviews on the road, I began eating gluten again. A big Arby's roast beef sandwich for lunch and then Avanti's -- pasta and bread -- for dinner. Two days later, I thought I was dying. It was pretty bad. Nausea, sweating, pain in the entire abdomen. 
     That's when it occurred to me that gluten may or may not lessen my endometriosis symptoms, but it certainly could be the culprit for the undiagnosed pain I had experienced for years in my upper abdomen. Tests were all inclusive. Not really a gall bladder problem. No ulcers. No scarring from reflux, but that's what they ended up saying I was suffering from -- acid reflux. 
     Again with the TMI, I had awful, embarrassing, painful and sometimes stinky gas. I wasn't sure what it was related to, though my doctor said it can be a symptom of endo.  
     It's been six months since my trial, and going gluten-free has changed my life! I feel so much better. I rarely have gas, and when I do, it's not painful. No more stomach problems and pains, and severely lessened pain related to endometriosis. 
     The key to determining my sensitivity to gluten was reintroducing it, which I'm not sure I would recommend! 
     I'm sharing this because more and more people are going on gluten-free diets. Not because it's a weight-loss thing (it's not!) but because gluten is the result of food that has been altered over the years. Like so much of our diet, it's processed. It's not the natural state of wheat. It's unnatural. And it's likely the reason for lots of illnesses, including those that affect the brain. 
     The good news is that there are now lots of gluten-free products available in almost every supermarket. I can still eat all the bread products I want, which may or may not be a good thing!
     I've read tons of articles on gluten, but I found this one fairly easy, straight-forward and all-encompassing. I highly recommend anyone who has a digestive, brain or inflammation type of illness read it, go on a gluten-free trial and see for yourself if you don't experience major freedom in your own health! 

http://authoritynutrition.com/6-shocking-reasons-why-gluten-is-bad/   Be sure to also read the linked article at the end!