Sarah D. Shearer

“Love does not traffic in shame and disrespect, nor selfishly seek its own honor. Love is not easily irritated or quick to take offense. Love joyfully celebrates honesty and finds no delight in what is wrong. Love is a safe place of shelter, for it never stops believing the best for others. Love never takes failure as defeat, for it never gives up.”

1 Corinthians 13:5-7 TPT

A day devoted to love begs the question: what does love look like? Does my life reflect it? I’ve discovered you can think you’ll be a certain way in a life season, but actually living through it reveals who you really are. Honestly, I thought I would be a lot better at a lot of things, and I’m struggling in many areas. And it’s not really with big things. It’s little things that burrow beneath my skin and hurt me deeply. I get my feelings hurt really easily, so each day is an upward climb to not pitch a tent in the place of my hurt, but to forgive, to offer grace and to move on quickly.

I’m learning that love is really about offering grace, about giving the other person the benefit of the doubt, and it’s about getting my eyes off myself for a while so I can have a healthier perspective.

The moment I start down a track of “no one understands me. I’m alone in this. No one cares.” Is a moment of danger. Love means I think before I act, instead of lashing out irrationally. Love means I don’t bring up every slight little irritation and that I just choose to let things go. Love means I learn to see things from the other person’s perspective instead of always begging them to see mine.

I think a lot of us want to be loved but we don’t really want to love, because it’s too costly and too painful.

Instead, we either become vacuums and constantly take from others, or we become self righteous and only give love, refusing to ever receive from others. But we can’t be just one way and be healthy. Love requires us to start at square one with this realization:

On my own, I’m nothing. My righteousness is filthy rags. I’m not above anyone or entitled to anything. With the revelation of the love of Jesus, I am transformed. I realize I am loved not because of what I can do, but because he has made me lovable.

From that place, I love others with the love I have been so graciously bestowed. It becomes easier, because I’m not doing it out of my own strength because that ran out several miles back.

Then, I am less offended because I’m not looking to people to fill the void in my heart because I‘ve already got it filled. The love of people has become a gift above all else.

This sounds so practical and it is, really. So why do I find myself constantly struggling to live this out? Why am I always worrying about what people think and concerned about pleasing people or keeping people happy or just being mad at them because they’re not doing things my way? I don’t know. I’ve got a long way to go. As Paul states, I have not figured it out, but I press on!

Just sharing my thoughts as I work through life and relationships, lest you foolishly think it’s all sunflowers and daisies. Each day I am being sanctified. Each day, I see what love looks like a little more clearly. Let’s keep moving forward.