A friend of mine once shared that, when her husband drives her crazy, she repeats to herself "I love my husband, I love my husband, I love my husband." I am sorry to say that's not what goes through my mind when my husband drives me crazy (big surprise, I know).
In fact, recently, he and I got into a heated argument (that sounds so much better than a fight), the details of which are not important for this post. Except to say that later that day, before Mass started, I knelt and prayed for the desire to forgive him (yes, I was still mad). And wouldn't you know it, shortly after that prayer our priest announced we'd be hearing from Paul's Letter to the Corinthians, about love being patient, kind, and forgiving all things. God does have a sense of humor.
At the end of the day, I relayed the whole story to our priest, details of the argument included. He laughed and said "I envy your relationship." I was more than surprised and asked what exactly he envied about all that, to which he replied "opportunity for holiness."
And that's the crux of it all. Love is not a feeling, or at least not just a feeling.
When we think of love, we think of the warm, fuzzy-brained, butterflies-in-stomach kind of love that is part of a romantic relationship; or the enormity of the feeling we get when we look at our children (at least when they're behaving); or our friendships. There are any number of things that can evoke that feeling of love.
Seldom do we think of the sacrifice that love entails - the giving of self, the denying of our own desires at times, the reprioritizing, and so forth. Ask any married couple that's been together for decades, and likely you'll hear a lot of "it's hard work."
It is hard work, because love is also an action. And a choice. And in the Christian life, sacrificial to the point of suffering.
And the point of love is not that we will feel warm and fuzzy for the rest of our lives, waking up to our love of the past fifty years, gazing into each other's eyes. The point of love is we walk this journey together, helping each other become the best version of ourselves, choosing each day to love, to put the other person before us, to give our all with no expectation of a return - and really, if both people are giving their all, there are huge returns. And let's face it, that's a lot easier said than done.
The point of love is also to love our neighbor like ourselves - and that includes helping the needy, feeding and clothing the poor, and helping make this world a better place with whatever gifts we have been given. The point of those gifts is to share them in love of neighbor. And again, easier said than done.
Easier said than done, because somehow we've become a world that fears sacrifice, avoids suffering to the point of closing our eyes to the suffering of others, and sees any type of discomfort, inconvenience, and pain as the things to walk away from, as if they were wrong for our life.
Well, guess what? Like it or not, life is filled with pain and suffering. They can't be avoided. We can, however, encounter grace in them, if we only saw them as opportunities for holiness. Whether it is because we sacrificed something for the benefit of someone else, or accepted whatever cross we have in this life and carried it with grace, or joined in the suffering of others to help them with their own crosses.
Life is filled with opportunities to give, to love, and to do so sacrificially. It's a daunting thought and a scary proposition. It is, however, what we all are called to do, if we only pay attention to the inner voice that wants more for us than fleeting pleasure in a world that will do anything to drown us in its noise.
How are you loving today? How are you choosing to give to others? How are you sharing your gifts to make this world a better place?
Choose to love and open yourself to the possibilities. It is a daily choice, and though we may fail in different degrees on a daily basis, we have each day to start over, to try again, and to do a little better with every step we take.
