AMOUR

Love is a funny thing. Life was created by it as will life as we know it end by it. It is what consumers the human soul & drives the faint of heart. It is what compells us to strive for our dreams & brings the anguish when we fail. Love...what a simple yet astoundingly deep word. I learned a long time ago that there are two types of love. The word eros meaning "what is it it for me?" & the word agape meaning "I love you/it no matter what happens or what outcome!" Yet, love goes so much deeper than that. Without love we have no passion to strive for the dreams that are burning deep within us. Without love we have no reason to move on or even live for that matter. Love is easily the single most essential characteristic that we must pocess, entrust, learn, seek, & grow in to be content.

I am about ready to become a father. I have been around many great men & women in my lifetime & have learned from so many, but yet I sit here on the eve of fatherhood & wonder why we don't love. I plan to love my daughter with more love than I know I pocess. I already adore this little girl & I have yet to see her face outside of a 3D ultrasound. I wonder though about this world I am bringing her into. Why do I see so many crying or angry in desolate marriages? Why do I see so many people angry because they are looking at their lives' & they are not content with where it is at. Why do I see the bitterness in people because of how people have "done them wrong?"

All this thinking of my daughter has brought me to a simple conclusion....our world has no idea how to love. This is how God explains love:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. . .And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. - excerpts from 1 Corinthians 13:4-13

Now ask youself how patient you are? How kind are you? Do you envy other peoples things or boast about what you have? Is everything in your life about you? How easily angered are you? How often do you keep track of every way you were wronged or every way someone has screwed you over? Do you delight when the truth comes out & someone goes down in flames or are you saddened for their fate, but thankful for the truth?

How can you answer these questions? Well check your lifestyle. If you truly know how to love you will portect others & their feelings at all costs. You will trust even when betrayed because at some point you needed that second, third, or even ninth chance. You will press on no matter the circumstance because "quit" is not in your vocabulary. No matter how bad something gets, love will get you through it.

Whether you are a Bible believing person or not, you can't mistake Jesus' life in history as a wise, teaching man with many followers. That being said, how could this man claim that the most important thing of anything he taught was love or to love? Pretty incredible if you ask me.

Imagine if every marriage dared to love trully? If they refused to give up & follow the love that Jesus describes? What if every person that is angy with their life started to love everyone in it? What if we loved our circle of influence & did not expect or demand anything out of them? I have learned that anyone from your family to your friends to a stranger just wants to be respected & loved no matter where they are in life. I will never reach anyone on a soap box or claiming "you know better!" However, I will reach them by saying "I understand where your at & I respect you for who you are." I can't change anyone, but I can love everyone!

Sara & I recently went through 40 days of a book called The Love Dare. Our marriage was in great shape when we started the book, but I understand my wife so much better now & would encourage any marraige to go through it. It can strengthen any marraige & repair even the worst marriages.

So I'm left with this thought...why do we not love? It is vital to our survival, yet we run from it when we aren't happy. We need it to succeed, yet when we fail we forget about it. We need it to find joy, yet in the sorrow we forsake it. We need it most when we are alone, yet we blame it as the reason for our aloneness.

I can't control who my daughter comes in contact. In fact I gaurentee she will get hurt & come in contact with people that not only do not love, but actually hate. Although, I can do one thing...I can teach my little girl to love. I can teach her to infect others. So how about you? Are you brave enough to love? How powerful do you really think love is & can be? You may think I am an idiot who is babbling, but I challenge you to test the power of love on your spouse, on your family, on your circle of influence, & on your community. See the change people will see in you & the impact you will have on them as you simply...love!

I will leave you with this thought. Love is not a feeling. It is not a sought after emotion. Love is not something that someone else makes you feel. It is not even something that can be gained through something. Love is simply this...a choice! You have to choose to be joyful instead of bitter, to be thankful instead of needy, & choose to love no matter the cost. My favorite description of love is from the movie Captain Corelli's Mandolin:

"Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being "in love" which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two."
-St. Augustine

& that is indeed the type of love I hope to daily posess. That is the love I hope Sara & I exemplify to our daughter. That is the one thing I hope to give to my daughter as she enters this world!