love

A misused, mistrusted, mistaken word.
In all its complexities, it really is just very simple. The thing that complicates it is fear. We are so afraid to love. We are so scared of giving love and not receiving it in return. People allow themselves to love when there is a sense of promise that they will receive it in return. I'm guilty of this. I won't allow myself to love until I see at least a glimmer of hope that I will too be loved. This is romantically speaking.
In our self righteousness, we determine who deserves our love. Those who are rude, mean, bitter, angry, hateful, do not deserve our love. I met a man at work who had some difficulties in getting his check cashed. He was rude, he was loud. He was wearing a shirt that said" homeland security, Arizona division" that made my blood boil. I seemed to have won him over because he began to smile as I reassured him that I would do anything possible to get his check cashed and that if I couldn't it was something I could not control. I smiled at him and he settled down. I was able to do his transaction. Oddly enough, my blood didn't boil too much. It had settled. I prayed for love that was beyond my own. I chose to show this man, this stranger love in the form of kindness.
There are people in my life that are so easy to love. They welcome it. They give it back. There are kind strangers in my life that make it so easy to show kindness.
What about those who don’t make it so easy? What about those who have abused your kindness? What about those who have hurt you, deceived you, made a fool out of you, and those who have misused you? What about those who don't see life as valuable and destroy it? They are obviously undeserving of anyone's love. What about yourself? You of all people can hurt yourself so easily by taking so little care of yourself, how do you love yourself?
Yet, above all these, is the greatest love. The love we reach out for when we can't find it our hearts to love. It is the kind of love that sees past the deserving and the undeserved, the kind of love that loves us, even when we don't love back.
Wouldn’t it be beautiful to love like that?
Was he not afraid to love us? Does he not know that we ( people) may not love him back? Yet, he does. He loves us.