Love Changes Everything

At our fundraiser I  shared the message of my heart. My passionate belief is that LOVE CHANGES EVERYTHING. If we can do that it opens the door for powerful, miraculous and life-changing things to happen. 

Years ago I asked God to expand my heart so that I could love people better, love them more. As the years went on God began to do that for me. That is when I began to see people, to see them for who they are rather than what they do or how they act. That is indeed one the greatest gifts that God has given me. That is what opened my heart to being friends with Robert. Robert and I started the PARC together. I would NEVER have been friends before with someone “like” him because of the life he had lived and still did. I am so grateful that God showed me his heart and who he was, his perspective. Robert helped teach me not to judge and to see people all the way through. Robert SAW people.

That is the beauty and ‘secret’ of the PARC. Seeing people and then showing them love and acceptance. There are so many things that go with that. If we can just love people and accept them, where they are and the choices that they have made and are making, it opens the door so much wider for God to do what He longs to do. GOD IS LOVE. If we will choose to love, God will take care of the rest.

This principle is often hard to fathom. We believe that we know what is best for them and what their success looks like. In other words we want them to meet our expectations. So often I hear, “I am so disappointed in that decision or choice they have made .” I am not sure that we have the right to be disappointed. If we are disappointed it means that we have placed our agenda and expectations on them. That sometimes feels a little prideful to me, that we feel that we know what is 'best' for that person. That job truly belongs to God.  He is the One who knows them intimately and understands the desires of their hearts. He has been in this journey with them their entire lives and so surely we can trust Him to bring them to what 'success' is for them. What it really looks like for their life. It doesn’t have to look like the paradigm that we have determined is best, so is thus best for them.

Love is about acceptance. It means accepting that they are in this place for the many choices and decisions that we don’t deem best, so to speak. But they have been their choices and decisions, and acceptance requires respect. We must respect that this is their life, and these are their choices. Let them be there. There are many, most who come, that don’t want to stay where they are. We always say that we help them to move to their next. But what is their next? Do we decide for them or do we accept, love and respect them enough to let them decide and tell us. And it is then we love them enough to trust that God is doing His part in ways we don't know or can even imagine. If we will love, it opens the door for God to do so much more than we could ever accomplish with our agendas and expectations and allows us to help in the ways that are truly good and best for them. It is indeed an honor to be allowed to walk beside those that come and get to watch God move in ways we never could.