A reflection on love

We have been working on how to love, how to love people... The last few weeks we worked on patience, kindness and rejoicing. So the step back that we are taking is to reflect on how we have been doing with loving in these ways. Let me share with you some of my reflections and insight. All of us grow up in different families... fathers and mothers who taught us or showed us things about life... and that would include love. Now with that we need to recognize that some have not had an upbringing that showed love in the right way... while some have had that good nurturing. As for me well I fall in the middle of both groups, maybe toward the lower end of not being showed love the "better way". Yes my parents loved me... just like many parents love their children... but there is that disconnect of not knowing how to love or how to do actions of love. For instance when one get's married you hear that love takes 100% and !00% that it is not a 50/50 thing. But do we really understand that? Well we say I love my wife 100% reasoning that we do things for her... not knowing what love really involves. As for marriage I would say that love involves doing those things we learned and more with special desire if you will. Back on track, you see if you are not being patient then you are not loving or showing love. You are showing something else and that else is not good. If you are not being kind to someone then you are not show/giving love you are giving something else and that else is not good. If you are not rejoicing with, then you are showing something else and that else is not good. I started to think about how I related to my children when they were young, you know you learn different things about raising children... good things but it seems that the most important part was not taught. That of showing love, showing patience, being kind, and ... even in the mist of acts of wrong in our children. For it is so easy to lose our patience and not to be kind... when we are dealing with them in times of "trouble..." and when that happens other things take the place of love. Oh how we might control our anger, sometimes... the thing is that the basics of what love is, is not being shown... hence no real love. Even when we are dealing with our children in the mist of discipline we need show the things of love, acting with patience, kindness... Oh how I wished someone would have taught me how to love earlier on in life! You see you are either loving, or maybe just not doing anything or you are doing things that are not loving and hopefully not things that are evil. Truly I want to love my wife, love my children and to also love others. With that let us keep on working on the three areas of love we have been working on, hopefully this will help us all to love more.