I don’t want to write solely about the election. I’m not going to add to the masses of blogs on the election results. I could. I very easily could, because I have a lot to say about it all. And a lot of emotions and feelings on it. And grief. Lots of grief. But I’m going to use this time to process not post. But I am tired of the way people are treating one another.

So instead I want to talk about faith, hope, and love. What it means to love each other. And what that is supposed to look like. And some could argue that this has to do with the election, which it totally does a play a part, but loving each other goes so beyond who our president is.

“There is such a love, a love that creates value in what is loved. There is a love that turns rag dolls in priceless treasures. There is a love that fastens itself onto ragged little creatures, for reasons that no one could ever quite figure out, and makes them precious and valued beyond calculation. This is love beyond reason. This is the love of God.” –John Ortberg

We are like old rag dolls. Which I’m sure most people are like, who even says that these days. Rag dolls aren’t a thing anymore, no one owns a rag doll unless it was handed down to them from their grandmother. But the point of this is to say, we, like rag dolls, are flawed, wounded, broken. Rag dolls are old, broken, busted, and people often question why the heck you would love a rag doll. But there’s always one kid who loves their trashed, ratted, stuffed animal or rag doll more than life itself. A love beyond reason. We are the rag dolls, God is the kid. God doesn’t need a reason to love us. We may be rag dolls but we are His rag dolls. He loves us beyond reason.

We need to love like God loves us. Love His other rag dolls, love the people around us. We’re all broken and struggling, so none of us are too good for this concept. You aren’t too put together to love your struggling neighbor. You aren’t too privileged to love those who aren’t. Use your privilege to be a voice. Use your privilege to love beyond reason. Use my privilege to love beyond reason. There’s a difference between being for someone and just wanting to save them from pain. True love is willing to say something that may bring pain in order to bring growth. Remember that when loving others. Being for people means celebrating when they celebrate, mourning when they mourn, pushing them when they need to be pushed. God is for us. He celebrates with us, He mourns with us, and He pushes us.

Each and every one of us is one of His rag dolls, His precious treasures. Treat each other like it. We as rag dolls are worth more than what this world tries to tell us. This world is going to be telling us that we are not worthy of it, when the truth is, the world is not worthy of us if we are faithful.

Hebrews 11 focuses on hope and faith. This time is going to be a time of loving others most of all and having faith. Hebrews 11 lists all of these faithful and obedient people of the Bible and how they trusted God with utmost faith. Moses, Noah, Abraham, Joseph. By faith, by faith, by faith, by faith. And then it gets to the end and says they were persecuted, stoned, killed, sawed in two. And that they never got to see what was promised to them. Which at first sounds like a huge bummer. They went through all these trials, they trusted God, but they didn’t get what they were promised?! Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of a promise? But then you read “the world was not worthy of them.”

These people played a role in bringing forth God’s kingdom. They didn’t get to see how it ends, but they got to play a part in it. And so do we. We aren’t the end all, be all of God’s kingdom. We most likely don’t get to see this broken world make a 180 and change. But that doesn’t mean we stand idly by, we get to play a part. And that part, your active participation, is more than we could ever ask for.