Love {Day 20}

Love is a decision, not a feeling. Deciding to love someone is easy as long as it feels good, but the second it goes south….that’s it! It’s over I don’t love you anymore!

Love is word we use to make us feel included, part of something, important. It gives a sense of identity. Love also helps us grow. We don’t like to grow, we are quite comfortable right where we are…thank you very much.

Wanting the best for someone, is wanting them to be as whole as they can be. Becoming whole is hard, because we do not want to see our holes.

These are the areas that we could do better in, our own selfishness, insecurities and humanness. So when those come to light in ourselves or in our spouse it causes growth and in an effort to avoid growth our first instinct is to walk away, because no one likes to grow.

Our Lord is constantly calling us to grow. Calling us into a deeper union and understanding of who we are and who he is. He is calling us to be sensitive to others and ourselves as we are growing.

Your child needs to mature, they need to move onto the next phase, but they do not want to. Remember when we were there, it’s scary, it’s hard, it will require us to change, so we resist. I’m sure we all still do that!!!

Anyway they may act out in some very inappropriate ways either by word or deed or both. Sometimes we are very understanding, as we know what they are going through. Sometimes we engage, and someone ends up shouting. Sometimes we say things that are hurtful, and that’s putting it mildly.

In those times, we may be tempted to walk away. What keeps us there? What keeps us from enduring hurtful, sometime true things, to get them to see?

LOVE. The decision is love.

Loving is putting yourself and your needs second for the good of the other. In a marriage or a parent/child relationship and sometimes even in a friendship.

My little disclaimer: I am referring to healthy relationships. I am not advocating anyone staying in a relationship that is abusive or unsafe.

Have you ever heard the expression; it’s easy to get on the cross, the hard part is staying there.

Meaning it’s easy to put our needs last for a little while, it’s hard to stay there until…..change occurs.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude, it does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. {1 Corinthians 13: 4-8}

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