Rooted to Bear Fruit
Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity (Colossians 3:12-14).
I feel as if my whole life, I have identified as Christian and felt I knew God and my Saviour Jesus. I knew we called Him Father or Abba and that instils a perception of warmth, closeness and safety as my provider. I know we are to love God with our whole heart above all things. I know we are to love ALL others with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. I know, but I do not think I even began to understand the depth of what those things truly mean until recently.
2019 was a year that brought tremendous pain and joy in my life (yes it was much worse than 2020). The year started out normal: working as a nanny, spending time with family, going to church, small group, bible study, traveling, and just living life. Then came March, someone walked into my life I did not know would affect the rest of my days to come. Daniel Yushin Kim. A sweet 5’ 10” Korean man who began taking me out and investing in getting to know me. It felt different from the guys I had met before, but little did I know, he was God’s provision for a storm that was coming my way. My perception of God at this point had grown deeper but my understanding of how deeply He loved me, and how He will always provide (Deut. 31:6) became very apparent just 3 weeks after I met Dan when a heartbreak came knocking on my door.
I remember the morning of April 9, 2019 like it was yesterday. I rolled over to see 13 missed calls on my phone from my Mom and I knew something was wrong. I quickly called her back and all she said was “come to your door”. My parents lived 2.5 hours away and knew the magnitude of what it meant for them to be outside my door at 6am and yet I could not fathom what was on the other side of opening that door. “It’s your brother Ben”. I hear those words ringing in my head on repeat often. My big brother Ben was in Afghanistan and on April 8, 2019 was killed in action. Benjamin Scott Hines was a gift of a brother that God put in my life to understand how loving He is and always will be. My brother was relentlessly kind, hilarious, servant minded and loved people well always with a smile. He loved anyways. He was my living example of loving simply because we are called to love.
After losing one of my favorite people, God began working in me and began to shape my perspective of who He truly is and always will be. I used to say I have no idea how I would move forward if I loss Ben and I began to see why God weeps when we are in pain because He lost someone too, Jesus. He watched Jesus die and experienced that gut wrenching pain I was feeling over the loss of Ben, for me. A sinner and someone who will mess up and make mistakes constantly, He still wanted to love me, provide for me, and save me from sin. When I lost Ben, He brought Dan into my life just 3 weeks before, who supported me and continues to love me through the loss I experienced. I see this as an intentional provision because Dan helped me hope in the possibility of there being a reason why I am still here and he helped to give me the strength to move forward trusting God has a plan. And I know He does.
Dan is now my husband and marriage brings on its own challenges but what God has shown me is that He is has not changed, He loves me still and He will provide exactly what I need, WHEN I need it. He has shown me that I am called to love anyway and the only way to do that is to love Him more than anything. That statement always felt strange to me because of how much I love my brother and my husband, I believed that I wasn’t allowed to love them too much but now, I know that this way of thinking comes from a human simplistic perspective. As I have gotten more understanding, I now think it means what you love most you will serve and please (Matthew 6:24). It means that when I disagree with my husband or someone is unkind to me, I love them with “compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience…” and bind them in love anyways. I forgive not matter how wronged I feel.
I am a daughter of Christ, a Godly wife, a daughter, a friend, a loving neighbor anyway. My decisions become rooted in pleasing God and honoring my covenant with Him first which means I love others better and my heartaches are rooted in receiving provision and comfort from a loving steadfast God (Psalm 136:1). My God is steadfast and His love never fails. Now, I do not have it all figured out, but I am learning what it means to put God first and the rest will follow (Matthew 22:37).