Does Love Live in You?

I sat here, getting ready to write about "love" and what it means in the various avenues in our lives that we find it. As I sat and pondered the words to write, I was listening to some old Brian McKnight songs and as I listened to the lyrics of one song, "someday, someway, somehow" I thought about relationships and how in the middle of them we can so often lose focus of what it is that brought you together in the first place. People are so quick to run from relationships when things get tough or don't go the way you may have "planned" it and don't let hurt enter the center of it all. That is a sure "love" destroyer for so many and I can only think of one reason...weakness in our own spirit. In the song, Brian McKnight says "we let one fight tear us apart." He goes on to say.."I realized how much I really loved you." These two lines can tell us about our own relationships and where we are as individuals and as a couple. See, one fight ends so many and in the end is when we wake up and realized the love that existed. Why do we wait until the pain hurts so deep to say, "but I really do love you." Or, "don't leave, I can't live without you." In a relationship we should always take action everyday to make sure the other knows just how we feel and how much we love them. If we are not sure how we feel, then we should be upfront about it and figure out what it is that hinders us from releasing that love towards the other person. How does this speak to our own selves and our relationships? Well ask yourself this question, "does my spouse know I love him/her?" If you answer "yes", how? If you feel that because you are there still or you say it from time to time or maybe your actions should tell them so, then I challenge you to search your spirit. Find the weakness of it and discover why you feel that this should be enough when love is not merely an emotion, it is not a feeling, it is an expected action. Love does not live if our actions don't live in and through our words. I can't simply tell my spouse "I love you" if I don't show it daily by my actions. Just as well I can not assume my actions show her I love her if my words don't speak to the actions. My words will let her know my actions are out of my love for her. Love continues to live because my actions live in and through my words.
I know we wait until special days to go all out for this "love" thing and with Valentines Day approaching fast, stores will be sold out of flowers, candy, cards, and even a wine or two. Restaurants will be overfilled with patrons taking that special someone out to dinner and "showing them" they love them. The next day, they may smile and comment about the night before and laugh enjoying the memory but the next day will the actions continue to live? Why do we wait for these days to express what we assume the other should know anyways? We have been programed for years to believe that it is these "special" days that makes up for everyday in between. The problem with that is the days in between consist of the fights that break you up because the actions for love have been dead and the words have been absent. Love is ongoing.
What if God did us like this? What if God only yelled out HE loves us when we are ready to leave and go away from HIM? What if God only showed us HE loves us on Christmas or Easter. Maybe your birthday? What if God told us HE didn't realize how much HE really loved us like Brian McKnight's song after we left HIS presence? We don't expect God to do this to us and God does not expect us to do it to each other. Should it be expected since we do God like that? God is love and if we desire to seek HIM and become like HIM then it is true that we are to become love. In that we will find that love will breathe in us and through us by our actions and live in our words. We can no longer allow our weaknesses to control our relationships and our life of love. Our weakness? It is the fear of exposing our hearts to someone not knowing if they will expose it to us. God gave HIS son to die for us, exposing HIS heart to us. In that, HE still gave us the choice to choose if we expose ours to HIM. This love covers family as well. Above all things Love should be the direction we all go when it comes to the choices we make as it relates to our family. Let love live in and through you and expose yourself to the one you love. Love is so amazing and so pure, so strong and so powerful. We should all learn to exercise it like the song says..."someday, someway, somehow."

Be Blessed