Love And Longing

Sitting here contrasting different kinds of love. Loving something, or someone, beautiful (in demand) versus loving the ugly unwanted thing. Love that is 'arranged' versus romantic (chosen). Selfish love and love based on principle.

Love versus lust. Hate and cold indifference.

"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love." - 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 ESV

Love is what people want and fear most.

I struggle like everyone does and everyone does struggle. This is a particularly difficult time of struggle in some ways. I wrestle with God because by sight things look a certain way but then I ponder His love... specifically the love manifested by and through Jesus and I become grounded again.

I see men trying to love women who have moved on. I see people raising children without a partner bearing life's burdens. I see sick friends and even noble people who died deaths that seemed cruel and anonymous and I struggle but love, real love, grounds me and eases my mind.

God taught me and teaches me daily how to love. I learn what to drop and what to cling to as I follow Him and the lamp of His word lights my path.

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