A week turns a little longer when you, your husband, and
both littles get sick.
So how did your week+ of love turn out?
I can say that focusing on love makes a lot of things
easier. It gives a place to snuff out frustration and anger. It offers refuge
for the soul which longs for justice. It allows every day to have a purpose and
no day seems wasted if it was filled, even to a small degree, with love.
But loving doesn’t get easier, even if you train yourself to
respond with love more quickly, or remember to love more often. It’s still not
the easy choice to make. Our nature is against it. Our nature is one which
seeks vindication, which is prone to complaining, and gets very quickly
swallowed up in fear.
Which is why he says, “Remain in me.” And why he says, “With
man this is impossible, but with God, all things are possible.” And why he has
overcome the world, so we can put to rest the desire to overcome it ourselves.
This week, love has allowed to me stay silent when I wanted
to speak. It’s allowed me to pray for people and situations, and then let them
go. With love, I have a lot less battles, but the battle to love is not an easy
one to win. Especially in a world, a country, a culture, and a community that
is simply falling apart.
I think this reflection on love could not have come at a
more fitting time, because love is what is needed more than anything else, and
it is what is particularly missing now.
My goal to love came originally out of a need to refocus in
order to survive a difficult circumstance with some in-tact shreds of sanity.
More recently, it became necessary to log into facebook, walk out my front
door, turn on the TV, and engage any human being in a conversation.
You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and
hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who
persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes His sun
to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the
unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Do not
even tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what
are you doing more than others? Do not even Gentiles do the same? Matthew 5:
43-47
Whatever you are, whatever you believe politically, whatever
you are currently advocating for, whoever your enemy is, love them with all
your heart. Pray for them with everything in you. Pray for them to see God, to
understand his love, to be blessed, and so understand truth.
Pray for yourself. That you will love well, and be open to
truths not yet understood. Act from a place of humility rather than arrogance—a
place of compassion rather than anger.
Because God is in charge of justice.
God will make all things work together for the good of those
who love him.
God loves Trump just as much as Hillary, and just as much as
them, and just as much as you.
If you can speak, and you can march, and you can act, all
out of love, then do so, please!
We who believe in a powerful and loving God can’t allow
anger or frustration to conquer love. For most of us, love is the only resource
that we have when our voices feel silenced, our lives feel threatened, and
pieces of our world are so horrendously, unfairly controlled by so many who
seem incapable of love.
