Oh, buddy......

My mentor and I have been talking a lot about who I want to be. In a bit of irony (pretty sure Jesus-type business), the four words that I wanted to set as my life goals were the exact four words that which he has spent his life pouring into the lives of the young men that he has mentored.

A true Christan man is…

Free

Wise

Good

Loving

He asked me which I thought was my strongest. I told him that I felt that being loving is my strongest of the four characteristics.

He responded by saying, “Oh buddy, do you know being a loving man often means carrying the most hurt?”

As I write this very piece, I am texting D. It still hurts me to think about how I treated him when hearing about what he did. I just apologized again to him.

But here is where I am at tonight… with every person I meet in my life, whether it be a 25 year old relationship or a 25 minute relationship, I feel myself fall in love with them. Not the “lovey-lovey” sort of love but a different sort… This says...

“I love you so much, [fill in the blank], that my heart literally aches for you…

It aches hoping that you will truly be happy.

It aches hoping you will find God.

It aches simply knowing that you could be more that what you have become.

It aches, some days, just wanting to hug you.

It aches watching you happy too.

It aches just to see you being you.”

But I guess I am not God. I can’t change the world but I can only change my world. I start with myself as I choose to love the people around me. I pray that God will do what He will. It continues to amaze me how much God loves us. I mean, if I love others that much, God must love them far more.

However, I confess though that I do not often feel God’s love for me.

One of my best friends in the world struggles with the fact that she doesn’t feel God. She doesn’t feel Him in her prayers. She doesn’t feel His love for her.

It’s weird, though, I do.

I feel how much God loves her.

I assure you, it is not my love. To steal from the Greeks, it is agape, philia and storge (NOT eros).

I feel that God is cultivating in me this love for others that hurts. 

It hurts to love... but I couldn’t live without it. 

Perhaps I am being branded with those characteristics. As they are burned into my flesh of my being it smokes and hurts like heck, but in the end I will be a marked man.

I think I am going to try to live my life so that the rocks around me won’t have to cry out because I didn’t share His love with the people around me.