Love again

Love is such a baffling subject for me… maybe because I sense inside of me that I totally do not get it. When I look at my journals and I look at my blog there is always this question “How do you love?” I suppose all of us have a burning question inside of us... Mine is love. Love is what I blog, journal, think, struggle with God about. Oh I struggle with God about it, it is what consumes the quiet corners of my mind. And today is no exception… this week is no exception. My sister and I had a brief discussion this weekend that made me think… first off for once God stopped my mouth long enough for me to hear her, really hear her, and not react. Well two things came from that sudden dumbness… well many things but I’ll only talk about two of them. First thing i need to learn how to listen, really listen and not react. I don’t always have to have a reaction to what people say. I can just listen, take it in and move on. Second thing from that came an awareness that I am too focused on self… and I hate that.

Well that conversation made my ears a little bit more sensitive to listen and later on that evening I went to a wedding. And like all good Christian weddings I Corinthians came up… “Love is patient, love is kind… love keeps no record of wrongs.” Whoa that last part caught my mind and heart. How many times do I internalize and hold on to the petty hurts. Then when I am hurt again I bring up the past and list the record of hurts. I did that this summer with Logos. I do it with my family. Heck I do it way too many times. And it hit me like a ton of bricks, do I really know how to love.

So a journey has begun… who knows how long lived or short lived it will be. But a journey has begun (continued?) to understand love a little deeper, to love my family and friends a little deeper and not so selfishly.

Flip the script to today…. I am studying I Corinthians 13… and I get stopped at the first part Love is patient… so in typical fashion I realized that I do not know or understand the meaning of patient… so I look it up.

Patient: bearing provocation, annoyance, misfortune, delay, hardship, pain with fortitude and calm.
Hum really...
Patient: quietly and steadily preserving or diligent
Patient: tolerant, understanding, preserving, constant, capable of awaiting an outcome or result, not hasty or impulsive

You know... You don’t need to be patient when everything is going well or according to your schedule and timing and you feel loved… patient almost expresses a statement that something has gone wrong (the crap has hit the fan, and it is coming your way) and you are calm, preserving, diligent, waiting… waiting for things to maybe turn around… or calm if it does not. Love bears.

Love is patient…
Love bears when it is provoked with calmness… And that led to a thought of passages where Christ was calm when provoked, quietly bearing the insults, because of love. Love for God and love for us… and then you get to Phillipians 2:2… maintaining the same love… is the way I love tolerant? Is it understanding of others? Is my love capable or calmly awaiting an outcome or result? Is my love not hasty or implusive. Is my love diligent.
Love bears much… hum… I have a lot to learn but I am excited. I want to learn how to love outside myself. Outside of what Nnena wants and expects from people. Instead I want to just love them… I can’t wait to see what the next comma in the passage has for me.