People so often come up short. They mislead, they manipulate, they let us down, they hurt us, they ignore us, they treat us unfairly, they leave our hopes beaten and bruised. What is all this stuff about love? How realistic is that? Can we really trust people enough to love them?
And while we are asking questions about others they are asking the same questions about us. Maybe the most amazing thing is not how much violence, hate, and meanness there is in this world, but that there is not more.
We went to visit a homeless shelter this weekend. My wife and I helped to feed about 350 people and they helped to "feed us." We were blessed, thanked, and lifted up by more people whose life circumstances would indicate that "love" or anything like that would be seldom found and seldom given. But yet it was there and freely given. We can be cruel with little or no reason, but yet we also have the ability to love and care when we have every reason not to.
We can rise above circumstances. We can rise above what other people are. We can love people who are not very lovely and we can love we we dont always feel very loving. Why love????
I have an answer that makes sense to me. To often we let others regulate our love. What we are depends on those around us. And in many ways that is what love is about much of the time. It is so much easier to care about people who care about us. And if no one cares I dont know if we can give what we have never been given.
But there is another step. It is a step we often fall short of, but it is a step we can take and often do. Love is not just about who you are. It is about who I am and who I choose to be and who I want to be. It is not about what you earn, what you deserve, or even how you make me feel. It is about what I choose to give to you and what I become in the giving.
Things are hard. Someone once told me life was "beans and hard times" and often I think there is much truth to that. But it is also much more than "beans." We often disappoint. That doesnt mean we must be disappointments. Hope is real. And pain only makes it more valuable and more to be treasured.
Why love??? People deserve to be loved. They deserve to be cared about. But you deserve to be loving. God is a God of miracles and trust. He gave us each other. And perhaps He knew what he was doing.

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