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"All you really need is love" by Christina Pearson (CatholicMom.com) Image credit: Pixabay (2015), CC0 Public Domain[/caption] The Beatles were right when they sang, "All you need is love." Of all the commandments, love is the one that matters the most because God is love. So, if God is love, then love is all you need. Because God is all that matters. In college, I failed human psychology. Twice. Partly because of trying to create and understand a statement like the one above; partly because I am not a left-brain thinker. My brain is not hard-wired to understand itself. My brain is hard-wired to drift off into my own thoughts and eat pastries — which is why I excel at running, not love. I fail at love constantly. It's probably my biggest flaw. The love that God is made from is called agape — the willingness to love for the sake of loving another, and it is the highest form of love a person can achieve. Love can be difficult. We aren't capable of real love without work, effort, help. None of us loves the way God loves. That's why it's so hard for us to let go and love the way we were made to. We attach ourselves to things, people, emotions, and concepts in this life — ones that are unimportant in the next. We don't let go because we need to feel in control of elements that are uncontrollable by nature. Letting go and jumping into the big abyss that is faith, for someone we've never seen or touched, isn't easy. Love isn't rainbows and butterflies. We struggle to love those we do and don't like because of pride. Loving people you don't know, people who have hurt you, or people you don't like isn't easy. It was never supposed to be. But it is possible. Loving the way God wants us to love isn't the same as we usually define love. Sometimes, love is as simple as silently forgiving and moving on, or willing the good of a person, who needs it more than you. Love is humble. Love is the most genuine when it is the most humble. In humility, we are simplified to our soul and to the soul, little matters but love. Accepting our own flaws and failures is the pathway to loving those we don't like. The love that God is made of isn't an emotional love. It's willingness to love because we are made in His image. It's a willingness to be kind to everyone who comes across our path for the sake of them. Love becomes easy if you try. When we see who we are and what flaws we have, it's easier to see flaws in others for what they are. Sins. We all have them. So, none of us is more deserved than another when it comes to who is loved more or less. Love becomes easy when you see inside yourself, and you see, like everyone else, you are tainted with the very things that came rushing out of Eden with the fall. When you recognize that despite knowing what we are and how it feels to be us, Jesus died anyway. That's love. Maybe that's a kind of love you can never achieve in this life but as the saying goes, we aren't called to be worthy, we're just asked to be willing to try. Love is all you need. Now and forever. All things pass, but only God remains. Everything passes but love — which is God. Love remains. God remains. Because God is love and love is all that matters.
Copyright 2018 Christina Antus