The Trouble With Love

There are moments in the day that I just sit and marvel at a face that I love completely. Not just the face, but the giggle and the thoughts and the innocent childhood glory surrounding the physical bundle of cuteness.

And then there are moments that the very same face can bring out all kinds of ugly. And I have to remember, "I still love her." (or him, depending on the face).

I still love her enough to take control of my emotions and be the adult. The one who takes a beating and returns it with much needed hugs. The one to calmly correct, and to be more concerned about achieving a positive outcome than spewing out the evidence of what I really feel like.

That is when love gets hard... when it doesn't feel like love anymore. Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose it. Thankfully, there is still grace.
************
Often, I am overwhelmed with the love for my savior. My emotions overtake me and joy fills me so full that there is no room for anything else. I tell him, "I love you more than anything." And He says, "If you love me, you will love my children."

Jesus, you are easy to love because of all you have done. But they hate me.

"If you love me, love my children."

I think about this and know how true it is. The best thank -you is to use a gift to help another.

Loving the ones that need love the most.... taking my love for Christ and transferring it to the unlovable. That can get hard. Many times I fail. Praise God, He can work through my efforts. Even the small ones.
***************

Hallelujah, there are experiences when a supernatural love comes over me, and I feel the love for a someone in need. It might be a stranger- or even an enemy. And with that love I make a commitment. Maybe it's just in my heart, maybe it's more.

And I do something nice. And they complain.
I work hard to serve. They ignore.
I give. They waste.

So often that is when I forget that I ever had love for them. I want to give up.

But if I give up, who will win? What else can give life but love? And life is what destroys the ugly in an unthankful heart, a wounded soul, and a hopeless spirit. Love is what breaks that cycle of death and plants a lovely seed of life.

The trouble with love happens when it doesn't feel like love. But love is not just a feeling. It is a force. And when put into motion, it produces, whether seen or unseen.

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

⁸ Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. ¹¹ When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. ¹² For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. .
1 Corinthians 13