Love

My cousin Nathan and his wife Becky are missionaries in the Canadian arctic. They live above the tree line, where there is snow for most of the year, and where a whole week can go by with 70 mph winds everyday. This last Sunday the temperature was 40 below with a windchill bringing it down to -58. Cold! Nathan walks around the town, trying to make contact with the people of the town. He discribed to us what he wears: full long underwear, jeans, thick wind-proof snowpants, a coat, and a parka, then a hat, a face mask, a scarf, and the hood from his parka. With all that he is still clod walking around and has gotten frost-bite on his small bits of exposed cheeks. I cannot imagine being up there. I love trees. I love people. I love my family. I think about Becky, while Nathan is out she is often left alone with their baby at the house. She said that it gets hard when their one big window gets covered with a snow drift. I don't think I could handle that. I know that they both love people. I know that they love their families. I''m sure they love trees.

And yet, as they stood on the stage this past Sunday, sharing their ministy with us, tears of joy welled up in their eyes at the connections God has given them with the people there. Neither of them could talk for a while, they were both so overwhelmed with love for this people they have lived with for three months. To them, the snow, isolation, and struggle is nothing compared to the joy of sharing their Savior with the Inuit people. The love of Christ truly compels them to give up all that the earth would value to share the greatest message of all times.

This Valentine's day I want to be filled with that love. I want the love of Christ to compel me to fully live for Him. To cease striving for anything I desire but to put Him first in my heart, life, mind, and days. I want to find my joy in Him and in sharing Him with my world.