A Loving Mess

Oh well, here i go again - revisiting my favourite passage in the Bible -

Love is patient; Love is kind; Love does not envy and is not boastful; Love is not proud or rude; Love is not self-seeking;Love is not easily angered, irritable or resentful;Love keeps no record of wrongs;Love does not delight in evil but rejoices in the truth; Love always protects; Love always trusts; Love always hopes; Love always preserves; Love never fails."

I Corinthians 13:4-8

I think if you were to summarize the entire Bible in one word it would be 'Love' and the ability to love in the way mentioned in the passage above comes from God.

I have been reflecting on my relationships with my family, my relatives, my friends and realized something... Relationships can be messy, not always easy and sometimes crazy. (That even rhymes like the words are in agreement with what i am saying! )

With family I know them just too well and tend to take them for granted, with relatives its hard to judge when I am being loving and when I am intruding, with friends its always tough to know when I am crossing the lines and besides that we all have our own quirks. I use this passage to guide me when I am confused and at times its just hard because emotions run high and worldly wisdom gives a different guideline.

Reading it again for the first time I saw the flip side to it. I realized that when I am in a loving relationship in some ways its guaranteed to be a mess... there are times I am going to run out of patience and need to remind myself to be patient, times I will be cruel and need to remember to be kind, times I will envy or be boastful, times I may be rude or self seeking, times I could be irritable and resentful, times i record every mistake committed, times i will even delight in whats not right, times i may attack rather than protect or doubt rather than trust or despair instead of hope, destroy instead of preserve and even fail to be loving at all! (Ouch!)

And despite all of that my family, my relatives & my friends make a choice to be in a loving relationship with me and continue to try to love me as in the passage above and likewise so I try. Now isn't that amazing? :)

Dear Mister God, this is @ina talking . . . Your Love is amazing!