I’ve been thinking a lot today about love as a motivator. Earlier I ploughed through the 1 Corinthians 13 ‘Love’ chapter. These are just some of my random thoughts on the topic.
Love? Without measure or boundary, Unconditional? Or love, Based on what I do? Fickle and uncertain, waiting for the moment I trust in it enough to trip me over and laugh as I lay bruised?
Love? Offered freely without asking for a return? Poured out for me? Or love, superficial yet showy, beautifully decorated yet paper thin?
Love? Keeping no record of wrongs? Or compiling a list, whispering back my failures, comparing me to others, reminding me I will never measure up?
Love, doesn’t fly off the handle? Isn’t waiting to kick me when I am down? Isn’t looking for a reason to criticise and condemn? Isn’t negative or controlling?
Love, is not self seeking, waiting there to cash in the reward, call back the favour? Isn’t a vague sense that can be retracted at any point? Is not dependant on external factors to keep it running over?
Really?
I seem to swing from extremes, one moment grasping the magnitude, awed by the truth and grateful for the difference love makes, and then the next forgetting it all and applying the fickle lessons of my experience. Love has changed me from a broken shell, and yet some mornings I wake expecting to damaged and rusty once more.
I’ve been reading a lot about a NP/Charity in America called ‘To Write Love On Her Arms”. I’ve been inspired and challenged and blown away by what I’ve read. You can read the story at http://www.twloha.com/the_story.php
The quote that gets me most is: “We are only asked to love, to offer hope to the many hopeless. We don’t get to choose all the endings, but we are asked to play the rescuers. We won’t solve all mysteries and our hearts will certainly break in such a vulnerable life, but it is the best way. We were made to be lovers bold in broken places, pouring ourselves out again and again until we’re called home”. It gets to me because so often I feel like I’m stuck in the heartbreak and vulnerability, sometimes I forget that there is hope, often I forget about the existence of love.
I guess love is a little bit like energy – some mornings you wake up and you’re inexplicably buzzing with it. Other mornings you lay there flat and apathetic, unable to move, pulling the duvet back up to cover your head. Somedays we think we understand a little of what love is, somedays its like we havent a clue.
hmmmm.
