Ever thought what life would be like without love? Has it ever crossed your mind? Have you ever thought about it as something that only humans tend to feel or understand? Do you sit down at night and think about what love means to you? How would you define it? Is it emotional, mental, physical...or all three?
Is your relationship on others built on a strong foundation of love and truth? Or is it one that you are trying to hold on to out of fear of hurt and pain? Is it...one sided? If you believe you've found true love, is it what you always imagined it to be? Can it heal? Does it lack envy, boasting, and anger? Does it include...forgiveness? We all want to know what it means to feel love and to be loved.
As a human being, we always want and are in need of love. We aren't meant to be isolated, forgotten, or left outside of the society we live in. Can you see yourself isolated like Tom Hanks was on Cast Away? The only real interaction became a volleyball, unable to know others, unable to feel connected to someone, unable to...love. His need for people was so strong that he had to use an object to satisfy what he lacked inside.
We seek people, yet at the same time, we know that there's that chance to get hurt, to feel pain. The knowledge of knowing pain is there constantly, telling us not to try again but at the same time, we continuously hope that just this one time it might work...that you will not be hurt. Ultimately the pain can lead us away from others...but it can also point to something greater than ourselves.
We have all been hurt in some fashion or form, but what keeps us seeking and opening up to those around us? There is one explanation that makes sense to me and that example began on this season, during the time of Christmas and leading up to Easter. The example is of unconditional, unselfish, and always forgiving love. A love that was given in knowledge of continuously being accused, hated, and hurt on a daily basis. One does not have to be a Christian to understand the unfathomable love that was given for the worst of people...all of us. Our example of being hurt leads us to understand why the Cross was put there to begin with, to take all the pain we have caused and putting it on someone innocent of guilt and shame.
"God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." -Romans 5:8
We all make mistakes, we all screw up, but knowing that there is someone who loves you no matter what you do or how many times you screw up is hard for even I to truly understand. Who could love a sinner who fails to meet any and all expectations of trying to build a perfect relationship? It is said that even before you were born, He mourned for you. Did God truly help us define love in the sacrifice that He gave with His Son?
"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." -1 Cor. 13:4-7
