Cross Equals Heart.

“The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we loved – loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves’

                                                                                    Victor Hugo 1802 – 1885

Every Easter throughout my adolescence my mum would wake me up early on the bank holiday weekend and make me walk the way of the cross with her local church. I for one am not morning person. I passionately hated walking around with old people doing the ‘stations of the cross’. But now a few later everywhere I look I see “+ = <3”.

Cross equals heart? What does that even mean? Cross equals love. What does that mean? In a generation where the cross is misused and misunderstood its understandable for people not to fully grasps what that even means. The only way to understand something is to explain it.

There are 4 gospels in the bible; Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Each shares a different account of the crucifixion. On event changing the course of history four different viewpoints. My favorite account is found in Matthew 26-27. This clearly shows the struggle Jesus went through before and during the crucifixion. If you want to know what that cross means in ‘cross equals love’ I recommend reading that passage of scripture.

Lets get personal now. What does this mean to me? What does that phrase cross equals love mean to me?

“We love because he loved us first” - 1 John 4:19

To know what that means to me you have to know my full testimony. Which is something I’m still not fully comfortable sharing yet. But know this, I grow up not really know what love was. I was forever told how ‘unlovable’ I am or that I’m too ugly/too dark/too crazy to love. My mum often tried to show me it but I was never at a place where I could receive it let alone show it back. I hated everything, everyone, myself. I got angry easily, hit/lashed out quickly and very violently. In private I would cry and lash out at myself, most of the time that mean cutting myself, burning myself on my arms, legs anywhere on my body I still some marks today from then. Deep down all I wanted was to be loved for me.

It took me awhile to understand that God loves me (it’s taking awhile to fully receive that love). The imperfections I hated, that where used against me are the exact reason why he loves me. He loves me including my mistakes. I know that once I began to be more willing to receive this love, agape love, something started changing in me. I became more loving, more caring. I’m still not at the point where I can fully show love but believe me I’m better than I once was. Love is slowly melting my icecold heart.

All of my friends and very little of my family know I have a tattoo of a cross on my right arm. The placement means a lot to me cause it’s the hard I cut the most. Me having that cross-there is a symbol that the cross covers it all. ThatI can live with the reassurance that my I am maybe weak but his spirit is strong in me, that I may fail but God never will. What was done on the cross still stands firm to this day. Daniel 9:26 says ‘the Anointed One will be killed, appearing to have accomplished nothing’ and I think that’s a perfect summary of what the Jesus did. To most it seems like nothing but love accomplished so much more on that cross than we will know.