1 Corinthians (13:4-8, 12-13) Chapter and verse
Love is patient, love is kind.... blah, blah, blah.
I wonder what Jesus would think of my take on this bible passage. I think a few truths were left out on purpose. Like how hard it is to wake up every day and choose to love the same person day after day, month after month for years and years.
You raise children, have careers, parents and siblings, health scares and financial crisis with this same person. You see sides to them that others don't see.
The fights, the long nights, the hard days.
There is just no way love is patient and kind all the time.
Now throw in his baggage, your trauma, family dramas. His parents don't like you and your parents are, well your parents.
You change, they change. And then one day, you wake up with all these feelings and wonder what happened to verses four through seven?
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
But in truth if this was the way, everyone would be happy all of the time and there would be no lessons to learn. How would you know that you are happy if there is nothing else to challenge what you know?
The bible doesn't tell us how to handle another person's emotions, hell, it doesn't even tell us how to handle our own. The challenge is loving ourselves as much as we love others. The truth is we must treat ourselves as kindly as we want to be treated, we really do reap what we sow. Are we seeing a pattern?
We cannot truly love another without loving ourselves
We cannot have friends if we aren't a friend
The truth is we need to be to ourselves what we need to be for others
And the reason that is so important is for on the days that we aren't the perfect example of what we expect from others, may we see in awareness that this is where it takes forgiveness and grace to balance when love isn't patient or kind.
I have found that in learning to forgive myself, I am more forgiving of others.
When I love myself, I have more love to send out into the world to anyone who needs it.
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