A Woman’s Cruciform Love

Tonight on Facebook, I read an update on a friend’s life that left me sobbing. I won’t share the details, but it echoed the stories of several women I know. Fighting for faith as they persevere in trial, just to be abandoned in the middle of it by the one they thought was in it with them. For several friends, the abandonment has been by their spouse, a most bitter betrayal when you are already fighting to endure in suffering. But some have been abandoned by siblings, parents, churches, or friends. The friend tonight wasn’t bitter, but she was grieving deeply. And that, friends, is the difference in worldly love and cruciform love.

Cruciform love. Love in the shape of the cross. My online news and social media feeds don’t much understand cruciform love. Sometimes I don’t think too many Christians do either. Who doesn’t get bitter when their spouse emotionally divests from their relationship in the middle of the terminal illness of a child? Who doesn’t get bitter when the friend or family member you thought was on mission with you decides they just don’t care anymore? So when I stumble across cruciform love in the middle of betrayal or abandonment (and what other kind of love could possibly endure such a thing?), I take note of it.

Cruciform love feels the sting of betrayal. Cruciform love doesn’t deny the existence of pain but faces it head on and walks through (or limps through) it anyway.

Luke 22:42 “Father, if You are willing, take this cup away from Me—nevertheless, not My will, but Yours, be done.”

Hebrews 12:2 … who for the joy that lay before Him endured the cross and despised the shame …

Jesus faced his suffering head on and felt its pain deeply. Love in His image hurts, which is why most of us avoid it like the plague.

There is overwhelming sadness and betrayal in this world. There is overwhelming sadness and betrayal in my little Facebook feed as well. The temptation again and again is to harden ourselves to it. We don’t just get angry at sin, we get angry at sinners. When our love is thrown back in our faces, we batten down the hatches and take down the sails. We will endure, but not vulnerably. We ride out the storm by locking ourselves in. This seems the way of survival. But it is not cruciform love. Cruciform love doesn’t protect itself. It loses its life. Praise God though that Jesus affirms such loss as the path to finding true life (Matthew 16:25).

Cruciform love is the gospel lived out. It is the essence of imaging out our God to a lost and broken world.

Luke 6 32 If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. 33 If you do what is good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. 34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners to be repaid in full. 35 But love your enemies, do what is good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High. For He is gracious to the ungrateful and evil. 36 Be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.

In this post, why do I emphasize the cruciform love of believing women? I have watched men live out cruciform love as well, but they are not the ones that share with me the private stories of pain in their lives the way many women do. Also, there is a particular vulnerability in our gender related to our creation in the image of God as ezer. The term reflects both God’s strength and His care, His protection and His compassion. And caring leaves us vulnerable. It left God vulnerable too, hanging on a cross exposed to a jeering crowd. And instead of anger or bitterness at the betrayal of the crowd that had cheered Him as Messiah just a few days before, He prayed in the midst of their jeering cries, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” This love at His most vulnerable, exposed moment is cruciform love.

I want to give a shout out to the women I see living out such love, but I note they are not much for shout outs. They love this way because they are convinced they ARE LOVED this way. And what other response could they possibly offer?

I John 4:11 Dear friends, if God loved us in this way, we also must love one another.

I John 4:19 We love because He first loved us.

Instead of a shout out of affirmation, I will offer simply an encouragement. Sister in Christ, though the world despises cruciform love and projects weakness onto those who believe in it, know that it is the gospel playing out in your life. The pain of your circumstances tempts you to harden yourself, except that you know Jesus loved you vulnerably even when it hurt Him deeply. And so you stay engaged as you can, loving those who can not return it. Bless you, sister, for you encourage me in Christ.

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