You can't run out of love to give

I think we make love hard, I think we make it much more difficult than it needs to be.  I think we treat our love like this commodity that is going to run out, like if we love too much then one day we'll wake up and we'll be empty and the love that was once in us will be gone.. it's almost like we feel it's ours and we want to hold onto it tightly, to store it up and dish it out little by little to those who deserve it but if there is one thing I have learnt this last year it's that love doesn't work like that.

I think I learnt how to love, I mean really love the kind where you just give what you have inside and don't expect anything back, in Cambodia last year.. the people of Cambodia are easy to love, they invite you into their lives and they are content with you just showing up. That's what love is, it's showing up, being there and listening to the other person. Love is simple and love is easy and it's something that is desperately needed in our lives and the lives of those around us.

During church news I recently heard the statement that "the greatest poverty facing the western world is loneliness".. it made me sad to think that there are so many people who are lonely and facing this poverty when the solution is simple and is inside each and every one of us if we only let ourselves love. If we only opened our eyes to our world and looked for ways to love the people in it then each of us could make the people in our lives rich.

I am trying to make sure that whenever I can I try (I don't succeed anywhere near as much as I would like) to make the people whom God has placed in my life rich simply by showing up and loving them as best I can in each moment. I am finding that it's actually quite easy to do this loving the people in my life thing and I honestly believe it's because love is not about what we can get, it's about what we can give.

Love is not a commodity that will run out, there is more love inside each of us than we could ever give away and it is only when you start giving you love away that the love inside of you grows and fills your life.

I pray that each of us will open our eyes to the people in our world and look for ways to love them, may we be "gentle; be patient, bearing with each other in love" (Ephesians 4:2).