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Marriage or Happiness?

(Thoughts on a thread of comments from social media earlier this year.)

Joy like breathing

He said, “Committing to joy is like breathing. You don’t have to think about it. Joy is easy. Commitment is hard. Commit to hard things.”

This viewpoint seems incredibly detached from a life lived in reality and truth. It comes across as untried and devoid of any emotional awareness.

After reading this comment, I spent most of the day thinking about the people and activities that have brought me joy and how difficult or illusive maintaining connection or a routine has been.

On a very basic level, nothing makes me as euphoric as a long bike ride with amazing scenery and long breaks to take it all in. Yet I haven’t been on my bike in nearly two years.

I call a nice hot sauna the joy of my life. Yet I’ve only been able to enjoy three sauna visits in the last five years.

These two relatively simple things are easily within my power, resources and ability to enjoy daily or at least as often as the thought crosses my mind, yet it’s been years since I’ve committed to making them part of my regular self-care routine. Why? Because commitment requires time. Commitment requires focus. It requires attention and intention. There is always something more urgent or important to do with my limited time and energy than cater to myself. Or so I keep telling myself.

I responded to a comment on a thread about a woman choosing to love herself over remaining in an unhappy marriage. Many of the commenters called the woman selfish. Nearly all of them scoffed at her happiness. Quite a few seemed to scream: Marriage is duty! Not happiness!

Quite frankly, I’m flabbergasted.

While it’s true I don’t know anyone who is happily married, I have always thought that carefully choosing a compatible partner could lead to a happy union. With this in mind, I commented, “Commitment should be rooted in things that bring joy. If you’re committing to a painful, distressing situation, that’s your prerogative, [but not] the purpose of marriage.”

Comments from the from the original Facebook post:

Marriage is not about self love. Marriage is a duty. It’s commitment. This is more that just about how you feel after reading, self-help books and doing yoga. Marriage requires obedience to your vowels [sic].

Found self love and destroyed her family.

Sorry I have to disagree, marriage is work and is a covenant and to simple say it’s about me and my happiness shows me she didn’t seek God first.

Unpopular opinion: Screaw [sic] your happiness when it breaks up your family. I didn’t’ hear anything about her husband cheating, beating, or talking down to her. It was all “my happiness” “self love” me” and “I”. this is a very selfish outlook. It’s an outlook that’s going to cause a lot of woman to grow old and die alone. Marriage is not about your happiness it’s about commitment. This annoying.

Bullshit. You decided to commit to someone and bring in life… then decide you needed to be happy? I hope she realizes how ridiculous she sounds.

WOWOOOOWOWOWOWOWOOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOW!!!!!

thejuicypeach: those comments aren’t wrong through. Marriage is all those selfless things…. Which is why I’ll NEVER do it again. You’re literally supposed to put your commitment above everything including your happiness. Damn that.

HarvestPhoto [me]: Commitment should be rooted in things that bring joy. If you’re committing to a painful, distressing situation, that’s your prerogative, that [but not] the purpose of marriage.

thejuicypeach: The issue lies in the fact that you can only choose what YOU’RE rooted in. You can still fall victim to your partner choosing something or someone else. Then you’re stuck bc of some stupid vow you took. No thank you.

Harvest Photo: How are you stuck? Every day consists of choices. Choose different. Especially if your spouse isn’t choosing you or your relationship.

NothingToSeeHere2023: By definition, you don’t need commitment if the only thing you are committed to is your own happiness.

[….]You don’t need commitment if what you are committed to 1st and 2nd is your own happiness. Vows are made for difficult circumstance, not shit that’s already easy to do. Committing with the caveat of happiness being paramount at all time would be like me vowing to breathe.

HarvestPhoto: Read for understanding. You’re inserting a lot of things that weren’t said or implied. Joy is not easy to maintain, yet it can be a natural occurrence. If you want to commit to a difficult thing that bring you no joy, by all means do so., it’s your prerogative (as originally stated).   

What remains shocking about these comments is the idea that a woman’s joy or happiness in her marriage is a selfish nonstarter. How dare a woman seek to not be at war with her humanity and her choices? The fact that so many women commented with deep vitriolic disgust tells me that many are as deeply unhappy with their choices and partners than they want to admit. So unhappy, in fact, that they insist that those seeking to self-correct their course, forget about their own self-care and continue to suffer in silence for the sake of the “union” and children.

What union is their in discord. If two people are not content with one another, there is no way they are living in harmony. If there’s no harmony, how are they living as one? Do people still believe children don’t sense discord? That children aren’t affected by their parents’ unhappiness?

My parents never divorced but my dad was out of the house for the last eight years of my mother’s life (my pre-teen/teen years). He was abusive and I did not want a relationship with him. More importantly to me, I wanted my mother to have a man who was worthy of her goodness. I was her divorce advocate and her cheerleader when she expressed interest in suitors. My mother has been gone for nearly thirty years. I usually write a poem or journal to her on her birthday. This year’s piece wistfully wondered if she had ever found joy in life.

If you are unhappy, don’t allow your legacy to be overshadowed by your child’s sadness for your unlived life. No parent wants their child to be unhappy. Yet most fail to show happiness to their cHildreth.

Self-care is a beautiful practice that infiltrates the hearts and minds of children and improves their outlook and expectations.

One action changed my worldview

After years of witnessing my mom and an aunt get beat by their husbands; and of me being a victim of sexual violence by these same men, it took only one instance of witnessing another aunt call the police on her husband the first and only time he put his hands on her. She was in the wrong that day. She was yelling at him about something. She followed him from room to room twice over in the apartment. He kept saying OK, OK. He didn’t want to argue. Finally, he grabbed her by the shoulders, perhaps he shook her, and he said, “OK! Leave me alone!” That’s it. She called the police. They came. He was taken away, not charged, but he slept someplace else that night.

I was fourteen. That was the first time I saw a woman fully protect herself. No matter my opinion on the circumstances, my aunt became a superstar in my eyes. Their marriage didn’t last long. Because discord and she had no respect for him. Yet his gentleness and earnestness showed through in everything he did. Of all the uncles I have, he is the only one I called uncle.

This aunt is indeed very selfish. She thrives on conflict. And she pursues her pleasures above everything and everybody. She’s on her fifth marriage. She loves carnal love and wants nothing more than to be adored, but she’s not a good partner or supporter. Everyone she has ever loved has been scorched in some way, myself included. However, she is the most wonderful counterbalance to staying in a situation for the sake of someone else. Or staying for the idea of duty and marriage. I needed to see her in action. I needed to understand that the options in front of me are never everything I have access to.

In me, both sides of my family see this aunt and my mom. My mom was the caring strength of the family. She was the nurturer, the feeder, the gentle lover, and forgiver of everybody and everything. My aunt’s focus is solely to enjoy life on her terms. Now that she’s in her latter years, she may be hurt that her children and exes have grown and moved outside of her will, but that doesn’t stop her from looking for her next great adventure.

It may seem incongruous to have such disparate women as my life models. I admit it took years for me to accept their warring personalities within me. Fortunately, over time, I settled into my personalities as I learned more about my needs, wants, and goals. I’m okay with the way I share my gentler side and the way I erect and maintain my boundaries. I’m fine working to exhaustion then resting and pampering myself beyond any period of time folks deem reasonable.

We are so much more than what others would limit us to.

My aunt is content with who she is and has shared no regrets with me.

Even though I wonder if my mother experienced joy in her short hard life, she was clear about her priorities and what she wanted. She was intentional about doing what she had to do to get to her next level. And she knew I was rooting for her to enjoy all that she could.

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Poem: It Shouldn’t Take Courage to Love a Black Woman

Courage shouldn’t be required to love a Black Woman. 
To accept a heart given freely or a life offered for reciprocal tribute. 
Where is the danger in respecting one who aches with neglect 
from being habitually dismissed and discarded  
throughout centuries of generations? 
What terrors does this global shadow craft present? 
False images of projected insecurities, self-hate, irrational anger,  
exasperated impatience, and I-got-this-don’t-need-you independence.  
The illusions formed by men of hypersexuality, low morality, and mean-spiritedness to assuage  
their proclivities of abuse, torment, separation, abandonment, rejection, and destruction 
Society built a totem full of grievances, animosity and dissatisfaction and  
called it Black Womanhood. Onto this altar are thrown the most violent human attacks. 
Yet despite this intentional sacrilege, the Black Woman’s labor is expected without delay 
or complaint, her support is claimed as an entitlement right,  
her nurturing care as a duty of her skin, gender and status.  
Indeed, no part of a Black Woman’s body or existence is expected to be under her control. Everything she is, society and man claim as their droit du seigneur. 
The world delights in telling Black Women we are nothing.  
We are the least desired and even then, only wanted for what we give.  
We are rarely valued for our personhood; often only praised for  
the volume of our production and serving unto depletion or death. 
Yet ask a Black Woman who she is and be prepared to bask in the light of her glory. 
We see ourselves as the embodiment of love, conduits of grace, dispensers of mercy.  
We are Wisdom, Discernment and Truth.  
We are Unbroken, Unbowed, Still Standing.  
Society sees one thing. We Are Another.  
We are not who you say we are.  
We will not perform to your expectations.  
We will do what needs to be done, but we will be who we be. 
We are Love, ergo we do not require courage to love ourselves. 
It shouldn’t require courage for others to love Black Women. 
We are humans with human needs, Women with human desires. 
We, too, want to be loved, held, cherished, respected and honored. 
We desire to be accepted as fully as we accept others; 
Invited into spaces so hospitable we forget the hostility of the world; 
Spoken to with a gentle understanding that elicits the same kind response. 
We gleefully pour all of ourselves into everyone connected to us 
Even when they feed us nothing in return 
We, too need to be poured into. 
We, too, desire to bask in the radiance of another’s glory 
To be bathed in joy, peace and tranquility 
To rest without anxiety and wake without urgency 
We don’t need this grace from everyone 
Nor do we expect a societal shift out of gratitude for services rendered 
But for our men… 
It shouldn’t take courage to be a man of character, substance, integrity, conviction and discernment 
A man with enough strength to support a leaning respite.
A man who follows his heart and spirit instead of social norms and biases, 
But alas here we are praying for courage to exist, to relate, to be who we are. 
It shouldn’t take courage to live well in this realm,
But alas, here I am alone and unwanted in a world unable to eliminate my joy, exploring life with an unmitigated gall derived from loving myself.

LaShawnda Jones
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My divorce was not a battle.

A message from Lana Michele Moorer aka MC Lyte on her Instagram account.  

My divorce what not a battle. My ex-husband, John Wyche, has never attempted to take any assets from me at any time before, during or after our marriage. Anything that is written or said that states or implies otherwise is untrue and unfair. I do not agree with or support anything that aims to secure clicks and views by crafting slanted messaging at the expense of the reputation of innocent parties.  

While I made public comments related to the delay in signing papers, I can state that any delay may have been connected to his desire to save the relationship; never to take any of my property.  

Since this matter appears to be of concern to so many, I will use this moment to share a few lessons:  

  • Divorce does not equal failure. We did not fail; it simply did not work. I pray for his wellbeing as I do my own and I wish him nothing but God’s choosiest blessings. 
  • If you have anything to protect going into a marriage, get a prenuptial agreement so there’s no confusion if it comes to an end. As a matter of fact, make sure you protect all of your assets with proper insurance, financial and estate planning. Our people are far behind the wealth gap; get a financial education and do what is in your power to protect what God has blessed you with. 
  • Focus on love and truth. Be careful what you say or imply about others. No one is perfect and we all have something that we need grace to cover. With all of the mental health crises we are facing as a human race, my prayer is that we will see more commonalities of heart among each other and less judgement.  

#LyteIsLove 

I love this post. Over the years, I’ve often said the end of relationships deserve as much care and consideration as the beginning. Begin as you intend to continue and end as if you care. Be blessed.

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Poem: Without Reservation

Repost: Have you ever felt like you’re a prophet in your own life? Writing instructions decades in advance of a moment? Or is it that people remain the same no matter the decade?

I’ve been thinking –
perhaps I had an epiphany –
I thought of how I was willing,
begged God actually,
for the boon of being
with you. To my mind,
you were the greatest
possible gift.
Then it came to me
this desire to give, give, give,
to love you with all
my heart and mind
to worship and praise
your body with mine –
it was all wrong.
I was backwards.
I’ve been requesting things
which would not satisfy me
in the long run.
Yes, I want you.
Yes, truly I want all
I’ve petitioned God for.
I do. I love you.
But there is something I want
much more than the pleasure of
pouring my life into yours.
There is something I need more
than my prayer answered.
Something I deserve more than
being a giver who receives
nothing in return.

Epiphany showed me
more than anything
I want and need
to be loved and desired
without reservation.

It showed me you should be
the initiator and I should follow.
When you give of yourself,
cover me – pour your life into me –
those will be my true gifts.
When you choose to love me
with your heart, mind and spirit…
choose to join your body with mine in a
symphony of worship and praise…
Those are acts worthy of my devotion.

I was sitting and thinking –
my ask was so limiting.
What I was shown opened the heavens.
My efforts are useless against your inaction.
So, my love, I must back away from temptation.
I must resist the urge
to supplicate myself at your feet.
Resist my obsessive longing and
suppress the desire to shower my gifts on
a man who does not value
or reciprocate my devotion.
I must resist that part of me until
you present that part of yourself to me.
Your gifts will replenish and revive
even as your presence restores.
Your love will cover
even as your strength shelters.
When you join your gifts to mine
WE will become our greatest blessing.

~ LaShawnda Jones, 2004 (ed. 2017, 2022)

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Poem: No Straight Lines

If life isn’t linear
Then we’ve already loved
Believing time wasted away
Waiting for what’s
already been

If love isn’t chronological
Surely there are no regrets
Deja vu confirms
What’s come and gone
Past is prologue to future’s past

Reality is never knowing you
Even as my spirit calls you home
Though we’ve only shared shy fleeting touches, my body
Flushes with memory of joys
Yet to come
How can there be certainty of tomorrow while languishing on yesterday’s dead-end paths?

If life were a straight line
Perhaps we would have missed each other in the rush to reach all the next destinations

Perhaps it’s better that we met on this long winding road and continued our separate paths

Perhaps combusting too early would’ve been mutual destruction
Fire that once consumed may now simply keep us warm
Comfortable enough to sustain life
Not enough to turn back time
Maybe we needed to learn to control passions, hopes, expectations
Maybe we needed to unlearn biases, roles and assumptions

Is that reductive reasoning?
A function of call and response?
If existence is a squiggly fifth dimensional experience
Suffering must be an element
Necessary for elevating consciousness

I see you. I feel you.
Yet you’re always out of reach
Present in mind, absent in body
Still, I am here. Where in the continuum are you?

How do we reconcile space, time, and
Waiting through choices that made
Parted ways divergent lives?

~ by LaShawnda Jones, 2022

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Video: “Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person”

by Alain de Botton

This is such a phenomenal human teaching.

Phrases I had to pause the video for (i.e., my notes):

  • Love is a skill, not an instinct. It needs time be learned. We’re taught to follow our feelings, which usually lead us astray.
    • Vulnerability is key.
  • We don’t know how to love.
    • To love someone is to apply charity of interpretation.
    • We start off with idealization and end up with denigration.
    • Love is not just admiration for strength, it’s tolerance for weakness and recognition of ambivalence.
  • We’re seeking partners that feel familiar.
    • We are not on a quest to be happy; we are on a quest to suffer in ways that feel familiar.
  • If you do not explain, you will never be understood.
  • Good enough.
    • None of us are perfect, but we demand perfection. The demand for perfection will lead us to loneliness.
    • You cannot have perfection and company. To spend time in company with another person is to be negotiating imperfections every day.
  • We are all incompatible, but it is the work of love to make us graciously accommodating to each other and our own incompatibilities. Therefore, compatibility is an achievement of love.
  • We aren’t able to change our type, but we can change how we respond to our type.
  • Compromise is noble.

Either/or, Part I free download: Either – Or (volume One) : Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Either/or, Part II free download: Either/or : Kiekegaard Soren : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

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Video MR 2.1: Divorce, Truth & Love

Video part 2.1 of the Marriage & Relationship series is the first part of the first recorded discussion. Though we don’t get into discussing the focus couples during this portion, a question about divorce leads to a mini sermon on love after truth is alleged to be the greater relationship building block. Take a listen. Share your thoughts in the comments.

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Poem: Sister, Sister II

My sister is forty-one; three years my junior. She’s about six months clean. I don’t know exactly when she began doing drugs, but around the age of twenty-four, she essentially stopped living her life. She lost, or gave up, her job, her apartment and her car and allowed her “boyfriend” to pimp her out. For the last seventeen years or so she has experienced horrors I can’t listen to without cringing, crying or asking her to share with less detail when she needs to talk.

Our brother died in July 2007. His funeral was the last time my sister and I saw each other until July 2018. She avoided me for eleven years. Whatever her reasons, no rejection has ever hurt more. Most of those absent years she called me on my birthday to let me know she was still alive. Quite honestly, her voice was the best present every time. I would also get calls when she was in hospital or jail and forced to get clean for a while. Answered prayers. One year she moved out of state with a john and was clean for almost a year. She called almost monthly then. Until he grew tired and bought her a ticket to return her to the hell he pulled her out of. I tried frantically to reroute her ticket to me, but she didn’t want me. She wanted the comfort of the hell that was the only love she was willing to accept.

A couple more years passed.

In July 2018, I returned home for a visit after many years away. I reached out to my sister through the grapevine – her network of friends and contacts who knew where and when to look for her. She agreed to see me. She stayed with me for about a day, sleeping through most of the visit. She slept in the car, on our cousins sofa during a condolence visit, in the car again and through the night. We didn’t have much time to talk between the visits and the sleep, but I made sure to remind her that wherever I am she is welcome. I told her what I wanted most for her was for her to love herself as much as she loved the man holding her in bondage, because then she would no longer accept the things she’s been accepting for her life. I told her she could return home with me that weekend. She had only to say the word. Instead she said she wanted to go back home to the drug house she was living in, to the man who had lured her into that life.

Earlier this year she entered rehab. She has a new boyfriend who encouraged her to do for herself. She wants to please him so she committed to rehab. However, she says she completed rehab for herself. The new guy also encouraged her to visit me. She stalled and bounced around for a few weeks after rehab, ending up back in the hell she now wanted to stay out of but didn’t know how to live without that man and all the familiar demons within sight. Then I got ill. Gravely ill. I called to tell her I was taking myself to the hospital and didn’t know how long I would be there. In my head, I was articulate, but apparently I was barely speaking. She began sobbing uncontrollably, saying “Shawnda, what’s wrong? I can’t understand you!” I was trying to give her instructions on what to do if I didn’t make it – sell the house, keep the profit, etc. I may have even said, “I’m letting go.” Or maybe she heard the distance in my voice. She started calling out repeatedly, “Shawnda, I’m coming! I’m coming!”

It sounded nice, but I didn’t believe her.

I’m grateful God doesn’t limit our blessings to our ability to believe.

My sister arrived the day after I was released from the hospital in July 2020. She hasn’t been in a home of mine in over fifteen years. It feels slightly surreal but mostly it feels like a lesson on hope, waiting and not letting go.

Kim is here. Answered prayer. New challenges. Renewed hope.

 

Sister, Sister II

I have loved you more

Consistently and unconditionally

Than any other living being,

Except for mom.

I have left myself open

Remained available

Laid myself bare

For your convenience

And possible comfort

Should you ever choose

To love yourself more

Than the abuse of men

And begin to value your

Life beyond your next high

I’ve been waiting

Months years decades

A lifetime now

For my sister to come home.

6/24/20

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Terry Ann: Woman. Seed. Fertile Ground. Inspiration.

In the summer of 2018, I began working on a portrait and prose book project about womanhood. That summer I returned to my hometowns Gary and Milwaukee and asked friends, family and old connections to pose and share some words about their womanhood experiences.

When I began sketching out the project my mom was not top of mind. As the project morphed into various incarnations, the hope was to pull others in along the way. But the more women I talked to and the closer I got to women who had been close to her, the more Mom began to dominate my thoughts.

I can’t ask my mother what her womanhood meant to her. She died just as I was coming of age. Oddly enough, I hadn’t considered my own womanhood in the context of the project until I visited my mom’s gravesite in Milwaukee. It was there that I realized I hadn’t really known her as a multi-dimensional person. My perspective was only as a daughter looking up. As a result I began questioning and exploring the layers of my own personhood. Perhaps my Mom became my proxy. I chose to focus my questions on how she was before becoming a mother.

During the visit, I asked relatives: What do you remember about my mom?

I wasn’t prepared for the responses. Such a simple question seeking to learn about personality and character, unleashed stories of actual and imagined trauma and violation. Things she would have shared with me during her lifetime if they were true. It’s interesting how I was able to reject the lies for what they were after holding their words up to the relationship I had with my mom. She was an honest and straight-forward woman. She didn’t wallow in past trauma, hide from it or keep it from me. Her story was her story and she told me what she wanted me know. More importantly, she answered my questions truthfully.

The more I analyzed my urge to ask others about who Terry Ann was before she became my mother, the more I realized I have only to look within. Everything I thought I didn’t know about my mother is actually in me because she remains a part of me. She’s the seed and fertile ground I sprung from and her life is forever my inspiration.

My sister had the only words worth sharing. She said, “I remember everything, but I can’t put words to my memories.”

Truly profound.

Perhaps that was my true dilemma as well. I know what I know, but somehow I can’t speak it all.

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Proving Ground

Prove me, O Lord, and try me; test my heart and mind. For your steadfast love is before my eyes, and I walk in faithfulness to you.

Psalm 26:2-3 – https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=Psalm%2026:2-3&version=NRSV

prov·ing ground: an environment that serves to demonstrate whether something, such as a theory or product, really works.

What do you believe about your belief?

  • Do you believe you have power over your decisions?
  • Do you believe you are enough for your life?
  • Do you believe you are capable of doing what needs to be done today?

I have a friend who is going through a tumultuous season with her teenage son. She’s a believer who has struggled, like all of us, with understanding how to apply the Word to her life. And how to be the Word in her life. Her focus is selective with an attempt at literal application. Over the years, she has repeatedly missed the same mark. A mark that appears to me to be an easy goal. Simple to achieve. No hardship at all. Her test has been love. Love is her proving ground. Truthfully speaking, love is the proving ground for all of us.

What do you know or understand about love?

  • I know that if I allow love to have it’s way in my life, I am de facto relinquishing control over where love leads me.
  • I know that love has nothing to do with romance, lust or physical desires, yet everything to do with one’s heart and spirit.
  • I know that love has nothing to do with me in and of myself while at the same time I am both fully a product and a conduit of love.

I know that God is Love. I know that He created a human version of Himself to live among the rest of His creation here on Earth in order to minister to us in our sin, our sorrow, our disappointments, our madness, our bondage, our sickness, and even in our death. Love is so much more powerful than obedience, preferences, plans, lifestyle, ideals, gender, sexuality and doctrine.

Love covers a multitude of sins because love is not diminished by sin. But perhaps love is proved by sin.

Do you love me?

No.

Why not?

Because you hurt me.

Then you never loved me at all.

Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses.

~ Proverbs 10:12 – https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=Proverbs%2010:12&version=NRSV

People who sin against you, violate your trust, hurt your heart, betray your relationship – whatever the trespass may be – are still precious to the Lord. God has not stopped loving the person you turned your back on because they do not live the way you want them to live. He is actually proving to that person that you had no understanding of love at all. You who were to be this person’s light and source of love took action to drive them further into darkness instead.

How do you respond when your interpretation of the Bible is challenged by a situation within your own family or friend circles?

Do you respond in love, with your heart and spirit projecting the love God gave the world when He laid Himself down for His creation?

Or do you respond in ego, in self, with pride.

ego: a person’s sense of self-esteem or self-importance.

self: a person or thing referred to with respect to complete individuality; a person’s nature, character; personal interest.

pride: a high or inordinate opinion of one’s own dignity, importance, merit, or superiority, whether as cherished in the mind or as displayed in bearing, conduct, etc.; the state or feeling of being proud; a becoming or dignified sense of what is due to oneself or one’s position or character; self-respect; self-esteem.

If we believe God IS who He says He Is, then we know His Word is performative. He didn’t just just tell us about love being gentle, long-suffering, kind, selfless and faithful. He gave us His Spirit of Love from the beginning when He breathed His Life into our lungs. And again in the middle when He sacrificed His form, His Son, Jesus, to show both obedience to the responsibility of love and the extreme performance of love. No one on Earth is worthy to be the Lamb. Not one person. There has never been an alternative to Jesus. No person created has been a potential stand-in cross-bearer for His assignment. Yet Jesus chose to die for us all. Not because we deserve His death, His blood, His concern, or His sacrifice. We didn’t then and we still don’t. And certainly not because He wanted to die for a dying, sinning populace. But Jesus too is a product and conduit of love. He is the Word Love personified. And even He said that those who come after Him will perform greater deeds than He did. Those who believe in Him, will perform Love better than Jesus. Imagine that.

Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.

~ John 14:11-12 – https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=John%2014:11-12&version=NRSV

As you consider Love, evaluate your relationships, especially the strained, difficult ones. In your interactions with the people dear to you, do you represent Love? Are you taking the responsibility of gentleness, kindness, patience, care, sacrifice and faithfulness seriously? Or are you focused only on self – your beliefs, your concerns, your perspective? The bumps and boulders in the road are your tests. Your relationships and daily interactions are your proving ground. As long as you are alive, it’s not too late to take on the responsibility of love and prove yourself the perfect conduit within your circles.