If I had a choice I would still love you

I don't think that we choose who we love. I think that love is a gift that is given by God and that we don't get a choice in who we actually love. We can pretend to not love who we love. We can take the hurt that they have inflicted and try to convince ourselves that it's not love. We can dislike the person they have grown to be or refuse to have them in our world but I don't think we actually get to choose who we love.

Sometimes I wish I got to choose. Sometimes I wish that I didn't love you, that I wouldn't love you anymore. Sometimes I try to stop myself from loving you and instead I fall in love with other things, with cities, with places, with friends, with all sorts of other things.. Sometimes I try to hate you, I take all of the things you've ever done and I look at them until they become who you are and I can't see you anymore. Sometimes I punish myself for loving you, I drink too much and feed my body hideous unhealthy things. Sometimes I just suppress the love and refuse to acknowledge it, I lock it away and hope that it stays there. Sometimes I try to distract myself, I throw myself into life, I move away, I work too hard, I invest in everyone and everything I can to try to forget you. Sometimes I run away chasing freedom from a feeling that hurts to much to feel. Sometimes I look at the choices you've made and I cry because despite the destruction I see in your world, despite the hatred you seem to have for yourself and the way you have decided to lock up your heart, despite this man that you have chosen to be I still love you.. and loving you is hard.

How do I love a man who won't let me? A man who doesn't love himself? On  the other hand how do I let go of something that I didn't pick up? Something that was placed in my hands? How do I chose to stop doing something that wasn't my choice in the first place? Can I even choose?

I have spent almost half of my life loving you and a third of that time trying/pretending not to love you.. and after all of these years I have discovered that it isn't a choice that I get to make. I can choose to walk away, I can choose to not have you in my life, I can choose not to call you or have any contact with you but no matter how much I try I cannot choose to not love you. Trying to not love you is exhausting and I am sick of fighting myself. So I accept it now I love you.

Do I like you? No, not right now. Is it easy to love you? No, not right now. But I didn't choose to love you, you were given to me and I was given to you and no matter how hard you make it I can't help but love you. No matter how much it hurts me to love you, I have to love you because it hurts me even more to not love you..

Sometimes I think that if I got to choose I would choose to stop loving you because it just seems like that would be easier but then I realise that I don't know how to not love you and if I am honest I don't want to know how. Loving you is a gift, a gift that was given to me and every time I try to give that gift up I feel like a piece of me has died because loving you is not a choice but part of my purpose.

We all have people that have been given to us, gifts for us to love but sometimes loving them is not easy, sometimes we wish we could give the gift away but that choice is not ours to make. It is easy to love the people in our lives that let us love them but the true nature of your heart is found in the way in which you love the people in your life that make it difficult for you to love them..

I pray this week that we have the wisdom to walk away from the relationships that hurt us while having the heart to keep loving (even if it's from afar) the people God has given us to love xox