Unconditional Love

With just a couple of hours until Valentine's Day, I thought it only appropriate to write my blog this evening about LOVE.

There are different types of love... The love you have for your children, your parents... There's the love you have that the Bible tells you to--to love your neighbor.  You love your friends and you love a stranger in need... but the only REAL LOVE is "Unconditional Love".

The problem with most people, and why so many relationships don't last, is that the love they have for their spouse, relative, or friend is conditional.

I love you as long as you give me...

I love you until you use my trigger against me then I'm done.

I love you until you get on my nerves. (LOL... that's a popular one!)

But REAL LOVE is not based on any condition of what a person can do for you, how they behave, or what they give you.  When you love someone unconditionally, there is absolutely nothing they can say or do to deter you from loving them until the end of time.

God must have known that this type of love would be hard for us as humans to grasp.  He sent Jesus to be the greatest example of that love.  Even if you are someone who doesn't believe that Christ is the Messiah--no matter what your religion, you've heard the stories.  And what a great love story it is to know that someone who never actually knew us personally, knew every one of our struggles, and our weaknesses and loved us anyway, despite our flaws, and gave his life, in his own suffering, so that we may have life.

Wow!  If that isn't love I don't know what is.

I think one of the most accurate modern day examples (besides God's never ending love for us) is the love a mother has for her children.  In the pain of childbirth she knows her very life is at stake to bring life to this little person who has done no wrong.  She vows to protect them and never let any harm come to them.  She vows to give them the life she never had.  For most mothers, this promise is unconditional--no matter what her children do or say, she will always keep that promise.

When you have unconditional love for someone, forgiveness overflows before they've even apologized for the wrong they've done.  You can't seem to stay mad at them.  No matter what type of crazy nonsense they do, you somehow understand where they're coming from eventually and your only response is to love them even harder.

Husbands and wives make vows to each other every day... Through sickness and health... for better or for worse... until death do us part... but few really mean it from the depths of their soul, which is why so many marriages end in divorce.  If they meant those vows there would be nothing too hard for them to work through, no matter how devastating it may seem at the time.

Now there are instances in which people must go their seperate ways, realizing maybe they've taken their relationship to a place it was never meant to be in the first place and now there is more pain than joy, more suffering than living.  In that case, it doesn't mean you hate them suddenly.  In fact, if you loved them unconditionally, that love should never go anywhere, even when the context of your relationship has changed.

Think for a moment of someone who has wronged you.

Did they do it on purpose?  Was their intent to bring you harm?  Does their behavior stem from their own pain, past, character or do you think it's really personal toward YOU?  Have you forgiven them?

Now regardless of how you answered the questions above, ask yourself, do you still love them?  If not, are you sure it was LOVE you were feeling for them in the first place.

This one is probably going to spark some conflicting opinions, and please leave them, because I love your feedback.  I just don't believe that REAL UNCONDITIONAL LOVE is experienced as often as people think these days.

I can speak on this because I know I am capable of this kind of love.  After years following Jesus' example and tending to the homeless, there was never anyone too dirty for me to hug or too smelly to wrap my arm around their shoulder and just poor out that Christ kinda love on them.

Throughout my life there are people who have done me wrong, betrayed me, lied on me... Even still, because I love them unconditionally, I've forgiven them (although sometimes it can take a while, I'm only human).

It is my wish and dream that more people will learn this unconditional love and begin to act and walk in it.  Imagine what a better place the world would be if people lived LOVE UNCONDITIONALLY!

Until next Monday... Happy Valentine's Day!  GOD LOVES YOU AND SO DO I!