Pieces

A friend recently recounted some sage advice she once received when complaining about something annoying in her marriage. Her wise friend cautioned her that "You don’t get to love people in pieces."

I often tell my children that I 'love them to pieces' but I don't get to love them in pieces. The same holds true for my spouse, my extended family, my friends...I don't get to love them in pieces. If he would just... Is she would only...That is conditional. I am loved completely and unconditionally by a Heavenly Father who has commanded me to love others in the way He has shown His love to me.

The verse my husband and I have inscribed in our wedding bands is I John 4:19. "We love because He first loved us." During those inevitable times when love feels like an active decision as opposed to a gushy sentiment, it means everything to remember to source of our love.

I have thought about this challenge of loving people 'wholly' A LOT in the last several days. Loving others the way we have been loved is an especially appropriate challenge at Christmas.

"God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us." I John 4:8b-12 (NIV)

It changes the way I treat those I encounter...especially the ones who are not so easy to love. Don't pick them apart in your head, Jen. Love them!

It has also changed the way I speak to my children and my husband. (A bit. I have a way to go on this one.) When I am tempted to peck away at things they say and do, I want to think about what real love looks like and pray for the ability to speak truth in love about things that matter and let go of the things that don't.

My husband is very good at living out this concept. Goodness knows I have my quirky, annoying tendencies, but he does not point them out or nag me about them. (This is different than challenging me on something that warrants it. I am speaking of the 'little things' here.) He just loves me. That security and acceptance inspires me to want to prove his belief in me to be true.

What would the world look like if we all endeavored to do that for others?

So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.
Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.
Love doesn't strut,
Doesn't have a swelled head,
Doesn't force itself on others,
Isn't always "me first,"
Doesn't fly off the handle,
Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn't revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
I Corinthians 13:4-7 (The Message)