Love Anyway

Love Anyway

I have discovered that with enormous love comes incalculable pain. Love anyway.

Growing up as an Air Force brat meant we could expect to move every few years. It also meant that the friends you made would only last less than three years as their parents would rotate on and off base as well. There were no cell phones and no social media to keep people in touch. We just lived knowing that friendships were short lived.

This created a guarded way of loving. You don’t have to be real or authentic because people never had time to get to know you deeply. Now, while we are more informed about the other than ever before, it seems folks in general are as guarded as ever when it comes to being generous with love.

There is a country song called, “Breaking up was easy in the 90’s”. It suggests that in he 90’s when you broke up you never saw what the other person was doing and didn’t know when you were being “ghosted”. Now, when we risk loving deeply, we not only face our own pain but it becomes more public than ever. It makes loving deeply enormously risky.

Consider Jesus on the cross…that was enormous love, risky love, public love.

Yes, loving deeply and authentically may hurt, love anyway.

You may be excluded, love anyway.

You may be rejected, love anyway.

You may be disappointed, love anyway.

You may be betrayed, love anyway.

You may be heartbroken, love anyway.

You may be…love anyway.

At the end of the day, if we don’t risk loving deeply then we will never know what love is like. Love is best lived when it risks. 

You may be afraid to risk loving deeply - love anyway. In doing so you will have a clearer vision of how you are loved by Christ.