Finding Love in the World

Acceptance is the eternal gift,

To accept and be accepted,

It settles every interpersonal rift,

And ensures wellbeing is collected.

***

Power and control, when replaced with love, because of fear, alienates good friends and close family. Even where there is love – conditional as it may be – there is also fear, and fear tends to quench love’s spontaneity. It cools love’s passion. It makes of love something detestable to the discerning soul.

Finding love in the world is not about romance, though we all want to find that kind of love. No, finding love in the world is about finding acceptance and grace in relationships everywhere as far as we can. It’s about finding a place where compassion reigns and kindness is implicit; where gentleness and patience are sought-after qualities. Finding this sort of love is best found in one’s family, then in one’s workplace, then in one’s church. The time we spend with people ought to be because we can love them and be loved. There is little sense in enduring some relationships that bear scant signs of love; where we can no easier influence love than get beyond a superficial conversation. Life with our important ones – those we will spend most our time with – needs to be more than superficial conversations.

The threads of life in the yarn of acceptance are encouraging and affirming. But the strands are disparaging in the wearing of rejection.

There is only one decision in life worthy of sweating over: who will I/we love and who will love me/us? We need to shove love to the top of our value list, and ensure we settle for nothing less in the overall flow of life.

We need to love and be loved. If we find ourselves settling for not being loved we have to ask ourselves are we doing all we can to love. Not being loved can be about abusive and one-sided relationships where one party always seems to get more out of the arrangement than the other.

Love is important; it’s the most important thing in anyone’s life: to be love and to receive love.

If we can love ourselves we can love anyone. And what leads to self-love is the proper understanding of God through Jesus Christ. To love anyone is our mandate. If we can love everyone we will find that love has found us.

Rejection is a powerful curse,

It brings a veritable hell to earth,

Rejection carries acceptance out to sea,

Where acceptance can no longer be.

© 2014 S. J. Wickham.