Unintentionally related to V-day ~ February 16, 2003

"Cause love is different than you'd think
Its never in a song or on a TV screen
And love is harder than a word
Said at the right time and everything's alright
Yeah, I said love is different than you would think"
Love Is Different ~ Caedmon's Call

I think I might of found the theme for my semester. It's an interesting phenomenon, but my school years have themes to them of hard concepts God wants me to learn. Last school year it was that God's grace is the place you gain the courage to see yourself as He sees you. This September I thought this year was going to be all about learning to stand on my own two feet, but it looks like that will just be a by-product of another, harder lesson: what it means to truly love someone.

I'm not really referring to romantic love. That's all well and good, but it finds it basis in another kind of love, relational love. I used to think that all it took to love my friends and family was to be really loyal to them, to try to take care of them and all that. That if I was friendly enough, tried not to expect to be repaid for what I gave, and offered a listening ear every once in a while that would be enough. That was it...that was love.

That kind of love doesn't hold up when you have your first real fight.

1 Corinthians 13 has been challenging me in ways I don't like (but I need) as we have been going through it in church. Paul has just spent two-thirds of a letter pointing out to the Corinthians how worldly they have been acting, when he comes to his trump card. "And now I will show you the most excellent way," he says. "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs...it always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails." Wow. Now that is a love I want to know, to experience both giving and receiving. Its something I don't particularly understand, simply because I am so used to my old definition. And it is something I don't really have the power to create within myself. It requires the Spirit of God. How else would anybody be able to not be self-seeking or grudging when they get hurt?

This kind of love takes risks. People are broken down, rotten scum; they're going to hurt you no matter how you shield yourself. But despite all that true love can see past that to care about the offenders. It doesn't hold itself back just because its going to get hurt at some point, and it isn't taken by surprise because it holds a realistic view of people. It keeps us in contact with friends miles away, enables us to be faithful in marriage, and allows us to lay down our lives in a foreign country. It is a live, dynamic thing. But it sure takes some growing into. I only know a little, but I'll admit, I'm scared. I've had enough taken from me in my life to be very wary of taking risks in relationships. All the same, "love is different than you would think..." Maybe God is telling me that there's not really anything to be scared of.