I was contemplating this yesterday after a couple of interesting conversations during the day. In February I also read this post over at Paisley Jade. I was really challenged. However in light of today's conversations I was thinking about love. What we know about it and how we learnt, what we know and how we show it?
I got the picture above as I was driving home after one of my interesting and (if I wanted to listen to that soft small voice) challenging. And over and over in my mind I kept asking myself What do we REALLY know about love?
In reality our life, beliefs and values result from a collection of experiences, circumstances, attitudes and choices. Each one of our experiences, circumstances, attitudes and choices create a 'frame' within that frame is the beliefs and values that we form as a result.
So take love... In truth it is a person. 1 Corinthians 13: 4-7 states: Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. It is a brightly painted heart. It is captivating and beautiful. It is bold and inviting.
But as we go through life we put our 'frames' around bits of LOVE based on our own experiences. Often these frames can distort (it if just a tiny bit) like looking through a frosted glass window. Cause really how often do we experience LOVE as described above??? Though life we gather a collection of 'frames' filled with the bits about LOVE that we think we know. We position them to create the best 'heart' shape that we can. But the truth remains that there is more about LOVE outside our nicely constructed picture frames then we usually realise. And it is more beautiful and more potent and more wonderful and more life TRANSFORMING then we are often capable of comprehending.
So....may my understanding of LOVE be ever growing.
May real LOVE be always transforming me from within
so that I may be whole; whole enough to not look on LOVE with the distortion that could result based on my own experience -
but instead with revelation about the true person of LOVE.
May I be always learning how to LOVE!!!
How bout you?
