Perseverant love
Carolyn's blog Radical Womanhood, formerly Solo Femininity, is worth visiting. Carolyn expreses a lot of wisdom through her study of God's word and her commitment to Him. Radical Womanhood recently featured a post about perseverant love, titled the pink bear parable. Carolyn says . . .I want to love and be loved until all that remains is a tattered remnant. Then may the Lord gently lay me to rest, closing my mortal eyes until the day I exchange an imperishable body for the one that wore out.
This weekend I've struggled with perseverant love. It is easy to grow tired of giving, isn't it? Yet God calls us to keep on, and keep on, and keep on giving. To give until it hurts, then give some more. Our aim should not be to preserve our own lives, but to wear them out for the sake of others.
Hmmm. I'm not at all sure that we are called to "love and be loved until all that remains is a tattered remnant."
It's tempting to think that, as long as we are daily sacrificing ourselves, we are doing the right thing. But Christian living is a marathon, not a sprint, and we have to make sure we reach the finish line too (see 1 Corinthians 9:24).
Part of that is becoming the kind of person where our daily acts of love are a daily joy, not a draining burden.
That means, for example, that we can't sacrifice quiet time with God (or with our spouses) in order to spend 100% of our time helping others.
Good points. I wondered if any of my blog readers would be diligent enough to correct my somewhat one-sided presentation of Christian love!! My post was very open to misinterpretation as a statement that we should "do it all, all the time".
I did not have time to offer the other side. We all need rest, and God encourages us to rest "for so he gives his beloved sleep" (Ps. 127). We cannot do it all, and should never attempt it.
The aim of my short post was simply to point out that we should not stop loving others. That is not a legitimate choice. Ultimately, we will wear out our lives whether or not we choose to love. We could choose to be worn out through self-love and other sins. God has simply defined for us the way we will wear out our lives.
Thanks for the reminder that perseverant love should be a joy. Carolyn's article points out that it certainly does promote long term happiness.