Love Works…HARD!

Sometimes love, true love, forgiving love, is confusing and draining.

I carry a lot of baggage. I don’t like it, but it’s there. Plus, I have a problem with anger, as you may have suspected. I also have a problem with forgiveness.

I tend to carry things around more than I like to admit. I hate that I can never seem to forget things. Although I’m an adult, I can’t get over certain experiences. It’s not that I don’t want to. But I’m often reminded of the past in the present.

It’s not that I want to live in the past. I just hate having to relive it in the present.

>I say all that to say: None of it matters.

It doesn’t matter in respect to love in its full measure. Love tries to forget and works to forgive. I hate that part. Because, mostly, I fail. And, honestly, I’d much rather avoid all the energy it takes.

Although I may not always feel that loving emotion, I try to be loving in my actions.

And there’s only one reason I do. There’s only one reason I continue to work through draining relationships and painful experiences, only one reason why I see any value in these things. There’s only one reason I don’t give up and take the easier path. It’s because of what Jesus did for me, for us. It’s because of what Jesus modeled in love and forgiveness that I do any of this. I know it’s the right thing to do.

>I know it’s the closest thing to unconditional love I’m able to achieve. 

Sure, I would rather keep a long record of wrongs I feel were done to me. It would be easier to hold grudges and never forget. I would love to demand restitution from everyone who has ever wronged me. But that’s no way to live. That’s not love. That’s not living.

>Love is work. It always will be. It has to be. That makes it real.

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[portions of this taken from here]