April 18

The photo is of Naron & Narow, my friend Dara's children, at bathtime. Aren't they the cutest? They call me "Mommya" which is a term of affectionate respect for an older woman. They love to feed me when I visit & they want me to live with them. I hope to live with them forever in God's heaven.

In August of 2009 I lay on the floor asking God to make me more loving, to make me love like He loves. Being in Cambodia is an answer to that request. At the risk of coming across cheesy or cheeky, may I remind you: Be careful what you pray for, you just might get it.

I'm learning to love those who cannot repay it. I'm learning to love those who cannot appreciate it. I'm learning to love those who refuse to receive it. I'm learning to love those who pervert it, those who take advantage of it, those who resent me for it. I'm learning to love those who do not even recognize it. I'm learning to love even when it hurts, hurts bad, hurts reeeeeally bad. I'm learning to continue to love when it's neglected, when it's rejected, when it rips my soul apart. In Cambodian english that kind of love is called "love big, big." Love big, big is hard, man. It's gotta' be God loving thru me, for even on my best days I am absolutely incapable of this kind of love.

Yeah, I'm learning to love like God loves. I cannot repay His love. By far, most of the time I do not appreciate it. Sometimes (probably more often than I realize) I refuse to receive it. I pervert it, take advantage of it & even resent it sometimes. I do not recognize the expressions of God's love toward me most of the time, to be sure.

My dear, dear friend Dara made me realize all this. Funny thing is, he didn't even know he was opening my eyes to this truth.

Dara is basically my partner here. He's with me wherever I go outside the teamhouse gate because he drives me there. (Jame is busy building his business.) He has experienced God's love thru our work & play & day to day dealings with one another & others. The other night the sum of our experiences utterly overwhelmed him. It was as tho' all our experiences converged upon his mind at once & it was just more than he could intellectually explain to himself.

While Dara, Bright (you remember my big little brother, eh?) & I were visiting one night, Dara cried for the first time since he was a baby. You recall only babies cry here. He said he was feeling helpless & hopeless & yet completely loved. He said he's never known such a big & true love before. Bright explained that the love he feels from me is the love of God to him thru me. He was just so overwhelmed he couldn't get his mind around it all at the moment.

It was sorta' sad to see a grown man weep as Dara did. I also felt very constrained seeing him so totally overwhelmed by love & not able to identify the Source. Yet, I was at the same time happy, happy to see, literally see, "the untamed love of God on the loose."

The few words Dara uttered in broken english that night were received with far greater understanding than even perfect language skills could've provided me. Between gasps & sobs Dara kept groaning, more to himself than Bright or me, "Ooooooh! I don't understand. Ooooooooh! I never know my heart like this. Oh, why? Oooooooh! No peoples ever love me so big, big, big. Why? Oh, I don't know." By the way, "big, big" is the term for the maximum size, but Dara kept saying, "big, big, big." That is definitely God's untamed love on the loose-bigger than the biggest. If we so-called christians really had a grasp on God's grace, we, too, would gasp & sob & confess we don't understand. We, too, would wonder in overwhelming awe, "Why so big, big, big?"

May you & I lay hold of that love big, big, big & pass it on to others.

"This is My commandment: that you love one another as I have loved you." ~Jesus Christ