Cait's Blog: Oh How He Loves Us

It's been a few days since I've blogged, which is kind of weird since I've made a habit recently of doing it everyday. I've just rediscovered my love for writing and feel like I just want to do it all the time! I find myself thinking of how I would write things and things that I can write about. This part of me has kind of been asleep for awhile and I'm not really sure why. Maybe this start of me seriously pursuing God in my life has made the difference. Maybe my new awareness of my need for God has reawakened this passion. After all, He's the one who gave it to me isn't He?

So the reason it's been a few days is because I've just returned from a weekend at Lou's cottage with Kait and Mami. It was so good to just get away with these wonderful girls. There's something about being on a lake, away from the men in our lives that brings out the craziness in girls. It's so much fun!

We drove up on Friday night. Kait's husband Phil drove us up; finding another way there proved to be impossible. It was scorching hot, no AC to be found, and the traffic was brutal, but we made it! I shouldn't complain that it was hot. This summer has hardly been a summer if you ask me... the nice days that we've been having and the ones to come are a blessing, and winter always seems to be just around the corner. Anyways, hot weather is always good for cottage weekends.

We talked, we laughed, and we danced. The first night we decided to go swimming at like 1 o'clock in the morning. We had to take a canoe across the water to a beach. It was pretty much the darkest night ever... the moon was so tiny and seemed so dull. So needless to say we could barely see, which made our adventure even more exciting it you ask me! (That rhymed, haha). We had a fire on Saturday night; roasted marshmallows and wieners... made s'mores :) One of my favourite parts of this weekend was that night too. Kait and I went and laid down on the dock for what seemed like hours. I don't remember the last time I saw so many stars! Here in Cambridge you can basically see one star when you look up. It's pretty pathetic actually. So many lights. Too many lights. Her and I just gazed at the stars as we talked. It was all so intimate and perfect. We even saw shooting stars. Multiple shooting stars. And there was this one... it was so bright and so long and left a trail as it shot across the sky. It excited me so much. It was in that moment, as I laid under God's beautiful creation that I wanted so much to write and to just talk about all the emotions and thoughts that I was experiencing. Kait asked me what I would blog about if I could. I would have blogged about how small I felt under how big and real I could see God is. I thought about that song, Indescribable and the lyric that says, "You placed the stars in the sky and You know them by name." I couldn't wrap my mind around it. I don't know how people can look up at what I was seeing and say that there is no God. God's exactly who I saw while I was laying there under the twinkling stars. There's no other explanation. God.

On sunday night we came back to Cambridge and went to hear Phil speak. He spoke about love, loving others, loving God. And he spoke of God's love for us. He spoke wonderful truth and it was so convicting. We love because He first loved us. In order for us the love others the way that God loves us we have to realize that God loves us so much! The reason why we have so much trouble loving others is because we haven't fully grasped how great God's love for us really is. I know this is true for me. I don't understand how God could love someone like me. I try, and the reality of His love is being revealed to me more and more, but I don't think I'll ever be able to fully know how He loves me. I've been listening to this song that I have come to love. It heard it a while ago, but just listening to it today I've come to love it so much and I feel like I could just weep listening to it.

He is jealous for me
Love's like a hurricane, I am a tree
Bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy
When all of a sudden, I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory
and I realize just how beautiful You are and how great your affections are for me.
Oh, how He loves us so
Oh, how He loves us
How He loves us so.

Yeah, He loves us
Oh, how He loves us
Oh, how He loves us
Oh, how He loves.

So we are His portion and He is our prize,
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes
If grace is an ocean we're all sinking
So heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss and my heart turns violently inside of my chest
I don't have time to maintain these regrets when I think about the way

That he loves us,
Oh, how He loves us
Oh, how He loves us
Oh, how He loves

He loves us,
Oh, how He loves us
Oh, how He loves us
Oh, how He loves