Our head pastor Rudy is turning 40 on Friday, so on Sunday afternoon we had a party for him at church. It was a sweet time to celebrate him and have some fun. And of course, you can't have a good Costa Rican birthday party without a piñata! That was hilarious! Latino style, the piñata doesn't just hang there while you whack at it blindly: they move the piñata up and down and send it swinging back and forth so you are whacking blindly at a moving target! It makes for quite a spectacle!The other thing I wanted to share with you today is totally different: I was reading in Matthew 22 where Jesus gives what is known as the Great Commandment. "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment." Of all the things God could command us: to give, to sacrifice, to do this or that... the God of the universe who reigns over all could command us to do anything. But what does he command? That we love him! That we love him with every fiber or our beings. That's it! Because of our love for him, we obey other commands he gives us, but first and foremost he wants us to love and delight in him! And we can only love him because he loved us first and continues to love us with the most beautiful, perfect, eternal, unconditional, complete love there is because he is Love himself. It just blows my mind. He is so amazing, so beautiful, so good, so powerful. He is great and holy, and he knows and cares about every detail in our hearts and minds. How could I not love him? Yet how often, how easily I forget... God has been teaching me some wonderful things about loving him and trusting him, but that's all I'll share for now. If you want to hear more, let's skype!
May God continue to teach you more about his love and loving him!
Carrie
