Love...such a blazing hot topic in today's society. Love is also the easiest emotion in the world to feel when you're happy, but the hardest to feel when you're feeling down in the dumps at rock bottom. Let me place a scenario in your head:
Think of the closest human connections in your life in your heart right now whether that is a friendship(s), family member(s), a relationship, etc. You've probably created dozens and dozens of memories with them, told them your deepest secrets, laughed about inside jokes with them until your side hurt from some kind of weird pain that you never questioned. Great times, right?
Now picture that connection being there one day, flourishing and blooming into something that was already amazing...and the next day, that connection with that person/those people are gone - completely absent.
Phone calls and text messages aren't returned.
Social media posts are never replied to.
Weird silences.
No communication between you and them.
No reason, no discussion, just one abrupt end that leaves you hanging - a door slamming shut without an explanation.
Who do you blame? Yourself? The other person? God? Nobody?
I can think of plenty of times this has happened, and I'm sure at one point or another it happens to everyone at least once in their life. You know, I'm not going to lie, this definitely is a painful thing to go through.
Your heart feels burdened, and you really don't want to place your trust in another person because you've listened to others say time and time again that they want to be an active role in your life, yet they fail to prove that with their actions...not to mention strangers who occasionally attempt to invest in your life, but don't complete the follow through. It makes you feel hopeless, and it makes you question who is really in for the long run.
Truth is, the more you love someone, the more pain their absence will bring you; that's pretty much an unarguable point unless you don't have a heart. However, God leads and lets us bring people into our lives even with the lingering thought in the back of your head that they may or may not leave no guarantees, and because of this, every single person has a choice to make in their lives:
1.) You can choose live your life keeping every person at a spacey and lonely "arms length."
OR
2.) You can recklessly and endlessly love others with a full heart just like Christ has loved us.
You see, the pain that you've felt with certain people turning on you in your own life? Christ has felt that same exact feeling with every single person that He has ever created on Earth - all some crazy number in the billions amount. Christ knows that you could turn your back on Him at any and every second of the day or moment in your life, yet, He still chooses to love you unconditionally.
"Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love." - 1 John 4:7
Live every day bold enough to love and help others on this planet because this world needs more of those genuine feelings. Do something for someone else not because you feel the need to do good acts in the spotlight, but because that is what Jesus commands us to do in order to further His kingdom.
Yeah, it can hurt, but you will start to notice a perspective that you never saw before - being able to love and forgive people for exactly who they are. You will notice that serving someone, being kind to someone, showing someone a light in their darkness if even all for just a season, is worth it...and that my friends, is beautiful.
When you come to a vital point in your life when you ask yourself, "Did I love others to my fullest potential," I hope you remember all of the smiles you brought and all of the happiness that others were able to feel because of Christ's love in you first. Our lives are not measured by the things we accomplish or the number of "likes" our Instagram posts get, but by the love that we share and give to others.