Learning to Love

Thanks to Saint Valentine February is often thought of as the “love” month. Some people dread it, while others can’t wait for it. I, personally, am not against it and not particularly for it either. However, it has brought me to think about what love truly is.

As a follower of Christ, my idea of love has been transformed and may not match up with what most think. I look back at my life and remember how not long ago I was in such a stage of rebellion and only looked out for my own desires. I wanted to do what I wanted to do and didn’t even consider looking at the consequences brought on by my actions. Do you know that the very people whom I told I ‘loved’ I was only hurting? The God that I said I loved, I cursed with the very same mouth?

About 5 years ago I was really weighed down by this fact. How could I say I love my mom but rebel against the rules she put in place for my good? How could I say I loved God, but live a life that only brought shame to His name? I had to get things straight. It was during that time that God taught me what love truly means. Regardless of everything I had done and said, He reminded me that all of my past actions were no surprise. Only then did I understand what it meant to love. You see, He, through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, put aside the fact that I had fallen short and accepted me anyway.

Now it is my life long desire to grow in love, to take the example that I have been given and live it out. It is NOT easy. There are so many times where I am tempted to fall back to the way I used to live serving myself and nobody else. It’s almost easier to just write a person off when they aren’t meeting your expectations. I mean why become friends with someone if you get nothing out of it, right?

Well, that’s not the example I’ve been given and that for sure is not true love. So as I live my life here in Russia, I reflect on how I have been stretched. Some have been easy to love, others difficult. The difference in culture has added some pressures as well as eliminated some. However, with God as my source and example of true love, I will push on in any situation I am in and try to LOVE others!