Love Even When It Hurts?

Love is one of the most difficult subjects to tackle and I think it is particularly hard for the Jesus follower. Our perception of love is sometimes quite different from what we are told love is. Movies and popular fiction lead us to believe that love is a two-way street. Well, if you read your Bible or have listened to any sermon on love, then you know that love is not always a two-way street. And when it is not, we are called to still keep loving. How absurd is that?

There is this particular woman I have been trying to reach out to for the past four months. I am just about ready to give up. She has rigidly refused to meet me half way. What is worse, she does not really have any friends. I guess she is content the way she is. It is just that each time I am about to throw the trowel, I feel this urge in me to not give up. The recent urge came from my mom. Loving someone who does not want to be loved is a challenge.

I belong to a group of women on facebook called Being Mrs V. We have been treating the Love Dares for some time now. After a break, the lady handling the Dares came up with this:

“…truly loving each other means that we ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS do what’s best for the beloved, deserved or not, easy or not, comfortable or not. We dont do it based on what they do in return. Not at all. We do it because living out God’s kind of love won’t allow anything else.”

(You will have to read the rest here)

That is the absolute truth and a bitter pill to swallow. How is it possible to keep loving even when the object of our love so obviously does NOT deserve that love? Funny, when it is in relation to a partner or a friend or even family, it becomes a riddle of epic proportions. However when it is the love a mother has for her child, the answer seems too obvious does it not?

No matter what a child does, or how undeserving of her love a child is, the mother will always love that child. Now I am aware that not every mother loves her child and not everyone had a mother to love him/her. But let us generalise a bit.

When we hear that someone was really horrible to his mom, we do not automatically think right! Now she is going to stop loving him! In fact, when we hear of a sacrificial love from a mother to a child, we are touched sure. But it does not take us by surprise.

This is the kind of love Jesus had for us. We, who were the most undeserving of the undeserving. He went all the way and even gave up his life for people who did not care. It was a thankless action. And that is the kind of love he expects from all those who follow him and seek to model their lives after him.

I really want to please him with all my heart but sometimes I think he asks for too much. How am I supposed to keepshowing love to my husband if he quits doing the same? If he begins to treat me in an unloved manner, am I still supposed to shower him with love? I guess the answer is a resounding YES. I have to keep loving him whether he deserves it or not and whether I feel like it or not. Same goes for other people.

So back to this woman…I am trying to show my love by reaching out. She does not really deserve my love; matter of fact she has rejected it. But I’ll try some more. I am not promising that I will keep trying indefinitely. I do have my limits, despite what it says in 1 Corinthians 13: 7 (Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance).