So.....
Many things have been churning in my mind and for quite some time.
I'm perplexed about faith and religion and church and the like. Strange, isn't it - to be still so unsure of one's spirtuality after having spent one's whole life IN CHURCH ?
My faith is intact and STRONG. However, I don't fully grasp what I'm doing here. Why is church so important and what is my role? One can have faith without church and many people attend church without faith. Why am I so drawn to it and why is it so important that my loved ones share that with me? I honestly don't have an answer for that question just yet.
And we are taught that we are called to be disciples - followers of Jesus. We are also taught to be Christ like. So, does that mean that as we follow Jesus and His teachings, we become more like him? Do we? ever? I mean, it seems so ebb and flow.... Sometimes we are very on cue with Christ, but others not so much. I would think that if you truly follow and spend time with Christ, this should be a constant - not an ever changing cycle. Perhaps that is just the human part of this. We are moody and emotional and NEVER constant.
So it is, I suppose with our relationships. Not just with Christ, but with everyone. I don't like it. I'm tired of emotions. I'm tired of good days, bad days and in between days. I crave consistency.
Because this is beyond my control then I must make choices that provide stability in my life and maybe that's where church comes in. It is one constant that has alway been a part of what makes me feel whole. It is the one place where most everyone there (for the most part) knows how love should go - even if they don't always practice it.
I can't control how others love, but I can control how I choose to do it. If I'm true to my instinct, the best way is always the way Christ loved. It's far from the easiest way or the most comfortable way but it seems to me that He modeled it this way for a reason. My instinct also says that although people may come into our lives randomly, we are still to love like Christ loved. Sometimes that means that our love is not returned the way we would wish. Sometimes that means our love is ignored. Sometimes, life takes our love and stomps on it, or poisons it with cancer, or gets angry with it. Sometimes our love is overshadowed by other human distractions or worse, completely rejected.
I believe that we've experienced all of those at one time or another and I'm positive that I haven't always kept on loving. In fact, I've done the opposite in most scenarios. But mistakes are how we learn. Ease and comfort don't work. Sometimes we have to be uncomfortable, sometimes our feelings have to get hurt, sometimes we have to take life's arrows in the gut - but we can't let those things kill our love. We have to keep loving. The only way to guard our hearts is to keep using them - even when it goes beyond our human will to do so. Don't let your love die. It's the only way to live out Christ's legacy.
