Fall in Love, Stay in Love

Mother is epitome the of love.  It starts with a woman falling in love with a man.  Giving birth to children and bringing them up in a family, a woman becomes a mother with irresistible love to her family.  Fired with love, a mother delights in undertaking sacrifices for her family.  When she was a baby or a child, everything was self-centred.  Now as a mother, it is not selfish, self-centred, life that matters to her; she finds delight and meaning in self-sacrifice instead. Falling in love and then staying in that love is the foundation of human life that is lived to its fullness.  The wonderful fruits of love experienced in a family can be expanded by falling in love with other brothers and sisters; fellow human beings.  The wider your range of loving relationships with others, the greater the fullness of your life. Jesus, bringing the love of the Father, wanted all human beings to fall in love and stay in love.

True love calls for a friendship with one another where the parties are open and frank. Jesus said, “I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.” (John 15:15)  Jesus does not want his disciples to be subservient, even in one’s love for God.  With God too make your love a friendship, just as Jesus has done with his Father and his disciples.

All this idealised ‘love’ will not always be your experience.  On reflection you will find that wherever love was lost and life is less than full, it started with loss of friendship.  Somewhere in the process decisions in life were made with selfish motives rather than preparedness for self-sacrifice.  But I am not accusing all parties of broken marriages and lost friendships guilty of such a failure.  In most cases it may be one of the parties who caused damage, sometimes irreparable. In such cases it is important to find other avenues where self-sacrifice can be exercised and friendships with open and frank sharing are possible.  Most of all nurturing friendship and fellowship with God through Jesus is what makes a life lived to the fullest.