Love...is not rude.

((Deep breath)) I haven't written in my love is series in awhile. No particular reason, I just haven't made it a priority. It's funny how things happen. Life has been so grand. I mean ever since we returned from Baltimore in early April, things have just been flowing. I'm grateful.

When I opened the Word and realized tonight would be "love...is not rude", I laughed at myself. No wonder it hadn't been on my heart to write in this series lately. But tonight....oh tonight is a night to write about love not being rude.

So I've been pretty open about the issues in my personal life. I honestly feel it is apart of my ministry to be transparent - some disagree. Anyways. So tonight was a true test in love not being rude. First, it is Mother's day. All day long I have just been sending gratitude for the amazing gift of my son. I've probably given him a million kisses today. It's about 8pm, and for the first time all day I let the weight of this being my first Mother's day as a single parent hit me. My emotions were flying high and that opened the floodgates for the enemy to come in.

One event led to another, and for the first time in weeks I just wanted to pick up the phone and tell someone how I feel about them. Not what God says about them, but what at that moment, my hurt self wanted to say. I picked up the phone, was ready to go, all engines fired, and then I stopped. The force that stopped me wasn't saying that I love that person too much to call and say the words I wanted to say and try to hurt them. At that moment the force that stopped me said I love me more than that. It told me that I'm better than that. And it also reminded me that I MUST be the parent that expresses greater love through it all - I must be love.

So I'm typing this with tears rolling down my face because had I stuck to my original plan of writing in this series every night, weeks ago I wouldn't have really known what it means for love to not be rude. But tonight I do. I know that love won't allow you to be rude. The most profound part about it is it has nothing to do with the other person. Love will open you up and show you yourself. Rudeness is a way to hurt others. As we all know...hurting people hurt others. Let love show you what's in you that is hurting so you won't feel the need to hurt others. After all, love is not rude.

Love...is not proud.

Leo Tolstoy said, "If you want to be happy, be". I believe the same is true for love. If you want to be love, be.

So often we think about love for others. We think about the feeling when we are in love. We seldom take the time to imagine how the world would be if we are love.

If we are to become love we have to lose our self in love. There is no space for pride.

The next time you feel triggered, attacked or things aren't going your way, pause for a moment and be love.

I believe when you do, God's entire Universe will conspire to work the situation for your good.

God is love. You are love. We are love.

Love...does not boast.

To boast is to have a source of pride. To pat oneself on the back. To gloat. To blow one's own horn.

There is a lesson in Marianne Williamson's "A Course in Miracles" that says when someone attacks you and you feel triggered, that is the moment to be still or "in my defenselessness, my safety lies".

Over the past few months, there have been numerous things to happen that I had to practice this defenselessness approach. Instead of reacting, I would be still, and let the Universe do what It needed to do.

Then recently, I found myself bringing up the very things I had chosen not to get defensive about in the first place. This time around I was bringing them up not in a confrontational manner, but I would say things that I knew as to say "aha...betcha didn't know I knew that".

I found myself boasting.

This was not intentional. Reflecting on the situation I can remember feeling like I was strong for not blowing up at the time. Now that I think about it, bringing it up later and feeling like I had accomplished something by not blowing up about it is just as bad.

So, I am still practicing the kind of love that does not boast. Once again, it requires us to return to humility. Even when I didn't think what I was doing was being proud, when I look back on it, I was. That's that.

I'm learning this love thing takes a constant renewal of your mind, your spirit and your intentions.

Love does not blow its own horn.

Love...doesn't want what it doesn't have.

As a believer, I have stood and confessed many times that what God has for me, is only for me. I've been so positive that everything in my life is working out the way it should. I've put on the outward appearance so many times that my life is exactly where it is supposed to be. It is.

At the same time, I haven't perfected the characteristic of this kind of love. Especially when something or someone you love is being shared, it is extremely difficult, I would say near impossible if it wasn't written in the Bible that love does not do this.

Envy. The word itself does not sound good. It causes us to turn our eyes and our focus away from what God has blessed us with and causes us to feel inadequate, insufficient and unloved.

That is why love does not envy. Love desires what it has - what it is. In essence, love is enough.

Love is...kind

Love is kind.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love is...

Kind.

I'm sitting down to write this after coming off of a 3 hour meltdown with my son (we are experiencing an early onset of the terrible twos). So, I have been practicing patient love for the past 3 hours.

Kind.

Love is....

Admittedly, I can deal with the many translations that say "love is kind". When I look at the translation in The Message Bible, it makes this characteristic of love a bit more difficult to digest.

"Love cares more for others than for self".

How does that translate to being kind? In our many different human relationships, it is easy to believe we are kind, but when we look at it from the context of caring more for others than for self, it's not so easy anymore. How do you care more for someone than for yourself when that other person has misused you? How do you continue to practice a kind love when the person just doesn't seem deserving?

Ask Jesus. He did it and continues to do it today. It's called loving from a distance. Humility is difficult to have. Especially when it means that you must love someone in spite of all they have done.

I can relate today's characteristic to many relationships in my life. It is so easy when disagreements occur to see fault in the other person. Today's love that we are talking about seeks to see the best in the other person, and causes us to self examine more.

Together, love endures long and is patient and kind. Practice caring more for others today. Practice being patient today. Endure.

Love is...

Love is...patient

Freedictionary.com gives the following definition:

pa·tient (pshnt)adj.

1. Bearing or enduring pain, difficulty, provocation, or annoyance with calmness.

2. Marked by or exhibiting calm endurance of pain, difficulty, provocation, or annoyance.

3. Tolerant; understanding: an unfailingly patient leader and guide.

4. Persevering; constant: With patient industry, she revived the failing business and made it thrive.

5. Capable of calmly awaiting an outcome or result; not hasty or impulsive.

6. Capable of bearing or enduring pain, difficulty, provocation, or annoyance

To me, none of these definitions sound fun. Really, they don't sound desirable at all. The first characteristic of love in this song is patience, making one thing clear: Patience = Endurance. The race of love is not easy. We are commanded to love those who have done us wrong, to love our enemies, and to first, above all else, be patient.

The word patience is found 33 times in the King James Version of the Bible. Obviously, God wants us to learn something about being patient. Being patient is hard, so does that make loving hard?

The Message Bible puts the phrase "love is patient" a different way. It says:

"Love never gives up"

So how do we endure, how do we practice patience, how do we not give up when everything around us says we should? We must turn it over to God. To Him who has all power in His Hands and who practices patient love for us every single day.

I'll be the first to admit that there are people I love dearly in my life that I sincerely don't want to be patient with. I want them to change right at this moment. I have often tried to love them so hard to try to change them. I always come back to the same conclusion; only by practicing patient love for them, and allowing God to work the miracle, can real change in a person's life happen.

So take this first characteristic seriously. Can you love someone even when you don't like who they are at the moment? Can you love someone when everything they've done to you should have broken you? Patient love does. Patient love says even though I don't like the things you've done and the things you are doing, I love you still.

Be patient.

Love is...

After venting last week about how much I feel my love is returning void, I decided it would help my spirit to talk about what love is. So, I'm introducing a new blog series entitled - Love is... In this series, I'll take a look at the 15 characteristics of love laid out in 1 Corinthians 13. I don't know where this series is going to lead me, or what it will reveal, but I am excited for the journey.

"Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place." - Zora Neale Hurston