Love Ain’t Easy

My daughter wrote this in a note to me when she was little. 

Love when it is hard

Love when it is easy

Love when it's time to love

Love when you are sad

Love when you are happy

Love when it is right

Her wise, innocent little heart understood a profound truth about love and the power we have to choose it. 

I wonder if she would add in some lines now after living years in this world and experiencing the things we all do - hurt, rejection, loss, and pain.  

Love even when you don't feel like it

Love when you are angry

Love when it hurts

Love even when you have to say goodbye

Even if it ain't easy, we can choose to love because it is in our foundational nature to do so since God created us, and God is love.  

God loves us; even when we mess up, cheat, lie, covet, gossip, or commit some other sins that we conjure up in our daily lives.  

I sometimes wonder how He does it. Like really. He has the patience of, well, Himself, I suppose.

It is a testament to God's unending grace and mercy that He never stops loving us, even when we don't make it easy.  

So, today, let's try to love ourselves and others as God does. 

Even when.

Even if.

Let's choose to love.

God loves you, and so do I.

1 John 4:19

We love because he first loved us.

Luke 6:35 

But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.