The Brain Train: Thoughts on Really Loving People

Brain Train: my mind goes on random tangents. I thought I would invite you all onto a recent trip my brain went on. For the summer I am living with a dear friend, but only for a few weeks until the apartment I am moving into more permanently for is ready for me. There was a small amount of tension when I moved in with one of the other girls, and my friend and I were talking about how hard it can be to really love someone well. This is my train.

Isn't it funny how loving people can be such a hard thing to do? If it is such a good thing, then why must we be willing to get torn apart for doing it? It's a risky thing, love. Even between friends, true friends, it can be hard. It seems as if I learn more and more that God's command to love seems very simple. In the beginning I do believe that it was so, but the moment sin walked in, it became a double edged sword. We can lust after the control it can give us, we can depend on the improper use and abuse of it, we use it to love ourselves and not others. And sometimes when we use it for good, it can end up hurting others as well when others react hard to the truth. It is love that puts the knife to the tumor, and love that pins the patient down without anesthesia. There are no drugs against the kind of pain that true love can make us feel; we are losing a very intimate part of ourselves when we die to our sins. Once gone, we want it back, we long for it, we feel as a part of ourselves is missing. And in fact, part of us is missing. But it was the part that wasn't supposed to be there anyways...

Thanks for riding along. May God teach us all to love well and to be loved.