Is Your Love Alive?
Welcome to Coffee Hour @ Chicklit Power and Monday’s Mantra
@ Trench Classes United. Come on in for a few minutes and let’s explore this
concept of love that is alive. I don’t know about you, but there are times in
my “love” life that I need to be guided away from the propensity of falling
into a rut instead of staying in love.
What do children, pets, plants, faith and love all have in
common? They are alive and must be nurtured to be kept that way. What are the
differences between children, pets, plants versus faith and love?
The first group is tangible, can be touched; the other two,
faith and love, are things that most of us spend our lives pursuing, but not
intangible by any means. When I think of the phrase, “Love is alive,” I can
think of several analogies wherein that seems to be a true statement. Children,
for example, are a good way to recognize that love truly is alive for if a
child is not nurtured physically, it can die and if starved emotionally, it is
crippled in more ways than one.
As a parent, we put their needs ahead of our own and care
for them, nurture them, consistently, even when we don’t feel like it. We do it
because our love for them motivates the actions. When they misbehave, we don’t
send them away; hopefully we discipline them in love, and use their misbehavior
as an opportunity to speak love into their life. This is love in action, love
that is alive.
On the flipside of that, there is much to be learned from a
child on the subject of love. Their love is not only alive, but so unconditional,
so pure. Even though my son is twenty-six, every time I hear him say “I love
you, mom,” my heart is squeezed.
Those of us who are pet lovers, don’t we go out of our way
to care for them and provide for them, even when we don’t feel like it? Some of
us even treat them like they’re people, talking to them as if they can
understand what we’re saying, feeding them the leftovers from our plate and
letting them sleep in bed with us. That is our love for them in action; in
other words, it’s alive. And if you think about it, it is something we do day
in and day out. We don’t even think about not caring for them, or not providing
food and shelter for them. Our love spurs us into action.
Those of you who love to garden, or enjoy having plants in
your home, again, you choose to care for those plants, to keep the weeds away
from them, to feed and water them. Why? Because you enjoy what they bring so
you continue to protect them so as not to lose the joy they bring you.
Your faith, though it is not necessarily something seen, is
the same way; it needs to be fed daily. My faith happens to be in God so each
and every morning I spend time feeding it, nurturing it, strengthening it so
that in tough times, I am not so shaken. Instead, because my faith is alive, I
am rewarded in more ways than I can count. If your faith is not fed, it will
wax and wane with the wind.
So it is with love. It must be nurtured to grow. It cannot
stay still and survive, but why is it when it comes to the kind of love we’re
supposed to express and experience in our significant relationship, we tend to
treat it like the air we breathe? We take it for granted. Isn’t that one
significant relationship more important than a plant or a pet? Doesn’t that one
significant love help us with our children, inspire our faith? I can’t help but
wonder if we treated the one we love with a love that is alive, would there be
fewer divorces? Wouldn’t life be a little easier with the one we love, less of
a rut and more alive!
Father, stir it up in me, a love that is more alive than
dead, a love that spreads, while speaking for itself.
Thoughtfully,
Evinda
P.S. Join me Thursday for Coffee Hour Live and Step 10 to
Loving the Unlovable at 10:00 PST www.facebook.com/EvindaLepins
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