I get all excited when the mail comes this time of year. Just about every day when we check our mail closet, I find a handwritten envelope…… and I know. I know that it's an invitation. I can tell by the look of the envelope. I always hope for pictures on the invitation; particularly if it's a graduation invitation or an engagement announcement inviting us to a future wedding.

I received a shower invitation a week or so ago that had a RSVP card that requested a reply different from the usual. Unlike other RSVPs I've seen, this card asked the recipient to choose one of the following

___Wouldn't miss it for the world

___Will celebrate from afar

Unsure why at the moment, I recorded those nicely-worded responses to my memory not knowing that they would come to my aid a week later. I've had people trouble this week. For one, I found myself faced with a sullen argumentative young person earlier in the week. No matter how sensible and calm I tried to remain, my interaction with this person spiraled until I felt so irritated , had I been a oyster, my clamoring insides would have produced a whole string of pearls. Not that I'm ever hard to love…..

In the midst of my people problems, Rylie (our youngest) asked me to make her lunch last night. Not that the lunches I make are all that exciting. They're not. I've been trying to make the lunches healthy. I also might mention I haven't grocery shopped in a few days. Add in my lack of creativity and she ends up with a lot of lunches I'm glad I'm not eating. She told me this morning, "I want a lunch from you because I miss the notes". When she eats in the cafeteria she doesn't have one of those notes that I write telling her "Yay, it's Friday" or "You are the best hugger ever!".

And so she invited me to love her through a note (accompanied by a piece of brisket from the freezer and Lays chips).

My response?

I wouldn't miss it for the world!

Today for lunch, Rylie opened a red envelope with her name handwritten on the front. Stickers and carefully crafted words will remind her that I love her. And I love that.

Love is best enjoyed when you've an invitation from the person to which you're extending love.

The stinky part is when we seemingly find ourselves without invitation to love. One place where I find myself in this dilemma is with complete strangers, like the checker at HEB who ignores my heartfelt "How is your day going?". Not everybody appreciates the fact that I consider you my friend before I know you.

We encounter introverted people, people who are distracted by heavy matters in their life, people who just don't want to be our friend and people who won't accept our love simply because we're different than them. I often find myself hurt by those people.

But it goes without saying, that it hurts the very most when an invitation to love someone close to us, is rescinded. This has happened a few times (to say the least) since we've had teenagers in the house. It looks much like the picture I encounter when Rylie gives one of her characteristic long hugs to an unwilling participant who seems to hold their breath until she lets go. There are breaths, days and sometimes seasons where our expression of love receives the reaction, "You're not invited".

That's when we respond like this..

-I will 'love' you from afar.

 

Because

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 1 Corinthians 4:7

Love always has an invitation. And like the borrowed from the French, RSVP , God desires that we respond

Even when it's hard.