Everyone in the world sees things through the stained glasses of their own previous experiences. People who grew up with abusive father figures have difficulties trusting male authority figures. People who were neglected commonly have the thought that people around them do not like them. Everything we experience taints our experiences for the future and influences the decisions we make.
This morning the thought crossed my mind and then translated into how different groups of people view love. Love is something that is different for each person because we all experience it in different ways. Some people experience love with kind words, some with gifts, some with physical contact, and several other ways for other people. Everyone sees love differently because we all approach it from different angles.
Love from one person to another will invariably entail hurt. When you invest deeply in actions with another person you are forming a bond. Since we know that love is an action rather than an emotion, it is clear that these hurt feelings really don't have much of anything to do with love, however people nowadays confuse the notion of a romantic feeling with the concept of love. I can love my enemies by treating them how I would like to be treated, but I don't need to feel for them like I do my wife.
Everyone in the world is conditioned to think that since love is an emotion that it comes with hurt. Hurt is something that we choose to feel when it is on an emotional level. Nobody can tell you how to feel. If they do something that is offensive or potentially wrong to you, your immediate choice is how you want to react. If you choose to be hurt you are choosing to move forward down that path. Love however, doesn't keep record of wrong doings, and choosing to be hurt is doing exactly that.
Sometimes we need to let things go and realize that love is really an action. Your love from you to another person will always have hurt involved because we as people aren't perfect and cannot avoid either end. We will always hurt the people we love and will always choose to let them hurt us. Christ's love however is persistent and pursues you with fervor regardless of what you have done. Even while you are committing acts that offend His love, He still pursues you. We can choose to be "hurt" by the actions of his love, but remember that hurt is a choice typically predicated on a lack of understanding.
Love shouldn't hurt. We let it hurt because we cannot understand a love that doesn't. Following Christ is a choice to approach a better understanding of that love on a regular basis.
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