Love

Thinking about love again. Been trying to do the "love your enemy" thing.  Loving people that are difficult to love. Loving people that don't love you back. Loving people that hurt you, or loving people that are bottomless pits of love, or loving people that you'd rather just bash into the ground.

My love doesn't change them. They don't notice my love, or they don't care, or they try to use it to take advantage of me, or it seems to just bounce off of them.

Love can turn into self-righteousness (if you think your love is "helping" someone), or turn into dependence (when what you call love is really neediness of your own) or become hurtful (when "love" becomes a word for "being nice" and niceness isn't what is best).

How do you love someone that doesn't love you? How do you love without it becoming false love?

You're left with a paradox. Maybe love doesn't change other people (or at least, doesn't guaranty a change). But loving other people definitely, and always, changes me. By loving others, I am transformed.

If I am loving because other people need to be loved, than it will turn into self-righteousness, and dependence, and emotional greed. I will let myself be abused in relationships because I need to "love" the person who is hurting me. I will let myself be obsessed with someone, because they "need" me to be "happy" as much as I need them. I will pat myself on the back, because I am lifting up the lonely and the hurt - I, I am their savior.

But if I am loving because God has called me to be a person who loves, then I center my eyes on God, and love away, regardless of the consequences, knowing that I will possibly never see "results" and it may not make anyone "happier", but I will absolutely become stronger, more compassionate, and more capable of love. My capacity for love will expand, and it will stop mattering if my love "changes" the people I meet.