Let's get REAL for a moment...
We all think we know what "true love" looks like - it's mostly flowers, chocolates, teddy bears, going on dates, butterflies in your stomach, imagining what your future kids would look like, practicing saying your first name with his last name, etc. It's the place where us young people have been trained to want to be all the time, and yet is somehow never what we expected when we get there. Honestly, I'm as single as the day is long and that's not what I want to think about. Today I was reminded what REAL Love looks like... REAL Love is being the bigger person. Every day. REAL Love is apologizing first, even when it was their fault. REAL Love is going out of your way to meet them where they're at. Even when you are screaming on the inside "I do this every day! It's your turn for a change!!" REAL Love is doing this over and over and over and over and over again. REAL Love takes the time to cool off and look at it from their perspective. REAL Love understands that I don't know what they're going through. REAL Love doesn't take things personally because it knows that they are probably too focused on their own problems to even realize what they just did to me. REAL Love doesn't answer from hurt. Instead, it stops to remember why I Love you. What do I admire about you? What am I proud of you for? What about you really shines? What characteristics in you remind me of Jesus? And even if only one or two come to mind, REAL Love rehearses those over and over instead of your hurtful words. REAL Love says those things out loud. It encourages, uplifts, and calls out the Truth that needs to be true. It is always kind, and in its kindness it is always gentle. REAL Love thinks about you before me - not because I don't need to be thought of, but because I know I already have been. Imagine if someone really loved me this way... (hint: it shouldn't be hard, someone already has) Would that change the way I thought about Love? Would it change the way I Loved in return?... So then why would I withhold that response as I am right now? Is it REALLY Love if I only do it when it's easy? Is it REALLY Love if I only give it to those who deserve it? Is Loving like this a trial? YES, IT IS! It's the hardest thing I've ever tried to do, but REAL Love considers it a joy... because the degree to which I can Love reflects the degree to which I have received the Love of the Father for me. When I know how much I have been forgiven, it's a lot easier to forgive. When I remember how much grace I've been given, giving grace doesn't feel so impossible. We can only love the way we've received love. If that love looked like "I love you, here's a shiny thing... But now you did something I didn't like, so I'm going to take that back now," then what do we expect? When love is conditional and being loved is something I earned, how else is my love going to look? I can only know how to Love by being Loved. This sounds broken and discouraging, but the good news is that I have been Loved by the greatest Lover life itself has ever know! And the more I look to Him, the more I see the mark of that REAL Love in my life - being poured out freely to a broken and hurting person who didn't deserve it. But isn't love earned? ...Don't I have to make you happy for you to love me? ... No. There's a new lesson I'm being taught. I've been given a REAL Love that reaches past my wrongs and transcends my pain. I've been Loved even when I was vile and mean and didn't see the damage I was doing. I've been forgiven of things I didn't realize I was doing and found out about it after the fact. The more of this REAL Love I realize I've been given, the more my definition of Love changes. That's when I can REALLY Love my brother, not before.
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ErikaJeremiah 29:11 Archives
March 2023
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