Is Love Really Worth It?
Last year I asked the Lord to teach me about unconditional love. I wasn't quite sure what I was asking, but I am thankful that I did.
In the pain I have often asked Is Love Really Worth it?
At times of pain in familial love, romantic love, and love in friendship, it felt like too much for any other answer than no. Then in times where I sit closest to my Father, my only answer is yes.
There is a purity found in love. There is an even greater purity in loving the person that struggles to return what they have received. The purity is not found in our own ability, but rather in God who is the very definition of love itself.
“Beloved, let’s love one another; for love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
1 John 4:7-8 NASB2020
Out of myself I can not love how God has called me to love. Out of myself I want to be loved with the same kind of love I give. Then when I don’t, I want someone to take ownership, and mend what they broke. I have found that a love that is pure does not expect, it just does.
Maybe you are thinking that sounds awfully pathetic. Maybe you are thinking well God wants us to set boundaries too. Maybe you are thinking man, that sounds great only you don’t understand what they did to me.
There are a lot of maybes I could come up with, but maybes do not bring freedom. Maybes do not set captives free. Maybes keep us bound by chains and shackled to the lies and pain that the devil so desperately wants us stuck in. Maybes, create a bitter heart that begins to harbor hate rooted in the depths of depression and despair.
Unconditional love is the pinnacle lesson of walking into freedom. It is not easy because I know for myself that I have fought the urge on the course of many weeks, and even months, to not rebuttal, attack, and defend myself. To not beg for someone to love me as I have tried to love them. It is not easy because these emotions desire to consume us like a tidal wave. The lies of what they have said to be true, gnaws at the heart, waiting to be let in.
Sometimes I imagine letting it all in, and getting washed over by the wave. Letting myself feel and say every thought I have fought against. Letting them burst forth with vindication of self and destruction of another. Then I sit there for just a moment thinking what if, and then I realize nothing would change. My pain would not stop, my love would not disappear, and what happened would not change. So, I don't.
And I pray.
“If anyone sees his brother or sister committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask and God will, for him, give life to those who commit sin not leading to death...”
1 John 5:16 NASB2020
I pray because I love the one who hurts me.
I pray because I choose to see the best in them even when they do not in themselves or even in me.
I pray because my Savior sits at the right hand of God interceding for me even as I betray Him.
I pray because I believe God is doing a new work, one filled with promises of good and a life of glory.
I pray because it teaches me how to love.
I love because I was first loved by the very maker of the world.
Unconditional love is a gift and it is not a bad thing. Despite the words of the world, it is not a bad thing. It is not a bad thing to see the good and beauty even in the person that has caused you indescribable pain. It is not a bad thing to love them even when they have proven they are not yet capable of loving you. It is never a bad thing to love because love is what heals a shattered heart.
Love is complex and love does not mean you let someone treat you however they want and stay in close proximity. Love does mean you can choose to let go, you can choose to see the best of who they are, and you can pray that one day things will be different.
The hope is that it will be different, but the love is constant even if it always stays the same.
So I am thankful for a sweet and unending lesson on love. What a sweet gift to be taught how to love people the way God loves me consistently and constantly.
That is unconditional love. And yes, love will always be worth it.
““This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that a person will lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you.”
John 15:12-14 NASB2020
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