Help Me To Love

One thing I learned on my trip to Romania: Foreign mission trips can easily serve as a pressure cooker for a person to face all of her issues. In just one week, I found myself looking in the eye my fear of failure. I struggled with my need to feel wanted, my ugly desire to be important, my equally ugly desire to be the best, and my frustrating insecurities in being liked. I also realized something that slapped me in the face—as much as I try to love, I miss the mark every day.

The devotion book that I took to Romania was Henry Drummond’s “The Greatest Thing In The World.” I’d read the book a few years ago and was profoundly moved by its words. I find myself profoundly moved once again, and this time I am making sure to absorb every ounce of the dense text. It seems as if each paragraph that I read in Romania spoke to an issue that I was struggling with that day. I found myself in tears more than once. And from my tears—from the pressure cooker of Romania—I wrote this prayer. I pray that it will be your prayer, too, if you, too, indeed, fall short of Love.

A slap in the face.
I claim to be a person of love. Yet if
Love is patient and kind;
If it does not envy, boast, or demonstrate pride;
If it does not dishonor others or manifest as self-seeking;
If it is not easily angered and keeps no record of wrongs;
If Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth and
If it always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres;
Then I am not truly a person of love.
God, forgive me for falling short,
For being envious and proud,
Self-centered and skeptical,
Short-tempered and long-remembering,
Condemning and judgmental,
And help me to love in Love’s fullness
From this day forward.
Amen.