A New Kind of Love
Found an old blog entry from a couple months ago. Not quite complete but I thought I'd share.
I've discovered recently that it's possible to go your whole life without knowing how to love someone unconditionally.
It's frightening really, all the subtle ways we withhold our love from the people around us. Our insecurities determine the risks we take with our love.
My affection comes with so many conditions. Subconsciously, a thousand little requirements dictate whom I love and how much I love them.
I ask myself constantly: What can they offer? What do they expect from me? Will they leave me?
It's easy to love someone when they have something to offer you. But what happens when they have nothing to give?
What happens when they are lying ill in a hospital, unable to care for even themselves?
I've always loved my Dad, but not because its been easy. At times loving him has been really really hard, and I'm sure he would say the same thing about me — although he does a much better job loving me.
He's my ultimate cheerleader.
Times when I swore I had the worst day ever, he would reassure me there was no way that could be true. "You're still young," he says, "you've got plenty of time to have worse days." Oddly comforting.
I've heard when people you love are in trouble it's easy to forget all the bad stuff about them. I can't say I've found that to be true.
I remember all the bad stuff, it just doesn't matter. I see it for what it is: shallow, meaningless, temporal...
Love is a much stronger emotion, because true love does not care about itself. Love does not say: "Look at me, aren't I beautiful?" Love turns the focus away from itself and says, "Look at that person, aren't they beautiful?"
The Good News testifies to this ecstatic counter-intuitive message of love. The world says "you're beautiful, therefore I love you." God says, "I love you, therefore you're beautiful."
Visiting my Dad for the first time after his surgeries two weeks ago, I found myself sitting in his room contemplating this thought.
Truth be told, he has never looked worse. Frankly, he looks like a nightmare. Right now he's totally unable to care for himself. He's absolutely has to rely on other people to take care of his basic needs. At the moment, he's not a whole lot like my dad of three months ago.
Yet, as I sat in the ICU—machines beeping and chirping out information— I thought: Isn't he wonderful! And just like that my praise wouldn't cease:
"You're wonderful Dad! Brilliant! Glowing! Fantastic! Good! Worthy! In and out! This way and that way! From above and below, you're incandescently beautiful!"
I mooned over him like the parents of a new born. The kind of dopey-love-drunk-praise you lavish on someone even though they have absolutely nothing to offer you. For a moment, I saw him through eyes of God. Perfect, just the way he is.
I am so grateful for every day I get to hear his voice. For the way he worries about me in the midst of his suffering. His love makes everything else so much more beautiful. He reminds me what a gift it is just to exist, and how much we take that for granted.
Henri Nouwen says, “Every time we make the decision to love someone, we open ourselves to great suffering, because those we most love cause us not only great joy but also great pain. The greatest pain comes from leaving. When the child leaves home, when the husband or wife leaves for a long period of time or for good, when the beloved friend departs to another country or dies … the pain of the leaving can tear us apart. Still, if we want to avoid the suffering of leaving, we will never experience the joy of loving. And love is stronger than fear, life stronger than death, hope stronger than despair. We have to trust that the risk of loving is always worth taking.”
Love and joy: they're both a choice. Yesterday at a church called New Leaf, a woman shared the stories of a number of people she knows who are suffering terribly as we speak. However, it's not their suffering they have in common she said, it's their joy.
Rob Bell has said that joy is learning to discern what God is up to even in this.
Paul talks about this profound sense of joy in the book of Romans, wherein he says,
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."
I've discovered recently that it's possible to go your whole life without knowing how to love someone unconditionally.
It's frightening really, all the subtle ways we withhold our love from the people around us. Our insecurities determine the risks we take with our love.
My affection comes with so many conditions. Subconsciously, a thousand little requirements dictate whom I love and how much I love them.
I ask myself constantly: What can they offer? What do they expect from me? Will they leave me?
It's easy to love someone when they have something to offer you. But what happens when they have nothing to give?
What happens when they are lying ill in a hospital, unable to care for even themselves?
I've always loved my Dad, but not because its been easy. At times loving him has been really really hard, and I'm sure he would say the same thing about me — although he does a much better job loving me.
He's my ultimate cheerleader.
Times when I swore I had the worst day ever, he would reassure me there was no way that could be true. "You're still young," he says, "you've got plenty of time to have worse days." Oddly comforting.
I've heard when people you love are in trouble it's easy to forget all the bad stuff about them. I can't say I've found that to be true.
I remember all the bad stuff, it just doesn't matter. I see it for what it is: shallow, meaningless, temporal...
Love is a much stronger emotion, because true love does not care about itself. Love does not say: "Look at me, aren't I beautiful?" Love turns the focus away from itself and says, "Look at that person, aren't they beautiful?"
The Good News testifies to this ecstatic counter-intuitive message of love. The world says "you're beautiful, therefore I love you." God says, "I love you, therefore you're beautiful."
Visiting my Dad for the first time after his surgeries two weeks ago, I found myself sitting in his room contemplating this thought.
Truth be told, he has never looked worse. Frankly, he looks like a nightmare. Right now he's totally unable to care for himself. He's absolutely has to rely on other people to take care of his basic needs. At the moment, he's not a whole lot like my dad of three months ago.
Yet, as I sat in the ICU—machines beeping and chirping out information— I thought: Isn't he wonderful! And just like that my praise wouldn't cease:
"You're wonderful Dad! Brilliant! Glowing! Fantastic! Good! Worthy! In and out! This way and that way! From above and below, you're incandescently beautiful!" I mooned over him like the parents of a new born. The kind of dopey-love-drunk-praise you lavish on someone even though they have absolutely nothing to offer you. For a moment, I saw him through eyes of God. Perfect, just the way he is.
I am so grateful for every day I get to hear his voice. For the way he worries about me in the midst of his suffering. His love makes everything else so much more beautiful. He reminds me what a gift it is just to exist, and how much we take that for granted.
Henri Nouwen says, “Every time we make the decision to love someone, we open ourselves to great suffering, because those we most love cause us not only great joy but also great pain. The greatest pain comes from leaving. When the child leaves home, when the husband or wife leaves for a long period of time or for good, when the beloved friend departs to another country or dies … the pain of the leaving can tear us apart. Still, if we want to avoid the suffering of leaving, we will never experience the joy of loving. And love is stronger than fear, life stronger than death, hope stronger than despair. We have to trust that the risk of loving is always worth taking.”
Love and joy: they're both a choice. Yesterday at a church called New Leaf, a woman shared the stories of a number of people she knows who are suffering terribly as we speak. However, it's not their suffering they have in common she said, it's their joy.
Rob Bell has said that joy is learning to discern what God is up to even in this.
Paul talks about this profound sense of joy in the book of Romans, wherein he says,
"What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written,‘For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.’
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