An Unconventional Valentine's Day Essay

"When someone else's happiness is your happiness, that is love." - Lana Del Rey

We're here at this time of year when we think about our special someone. I'm thinking about my little lady. She is beautiful and hilarious and so sweet to me and to her friends even when life is a battle. I got to see her last weekend and man it was fun. And her birthday just so happens to be on Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day is a day of love for our significant others. But I would hold that there's a whole lot more to love than that and it's what I want to dive into.

Fact: Love is diametrically opposed to hatred. They are opposites. A few weeks ago I talked about hatred and the need to kill it in our lives. I would venture further than that though. It's not enough to not hate people. Eradicating that little bit of hate that you sometimes let creep up into your life is a good place to start, but the reality is that until your hate turns to love, you are doing this world a grand disservice.

Love and hate is not the kind of thing where there are two and only two choices. There are countless examples I could provide of two choices and only two, where there exists no spectrum between the diametrically opposed ideas. Here though, there is most definitely a spectrum. On the one end is love and on the other end is hate. The way most of us see it, the moment we meet a new person, their spectrum is right in the middle. They have not shown us anything, therefore they are neither loved nor hated. Then their actions dictate where they slide on that bar. Some of our politicians slide down far to the side of hatred because, regardless of party, we get annoyed that they can't work together. Some of our best friends go up high on the side of love because we recognize that they are doing a lot for us and making our lives easier. Love therefore, is a reality for people who earn their love, just as hatred is a reality for people who earn our hatred. This is an understandable but virulent philosophy to get ourselves locked into.

Disclaimer: We are human beings. We are affected by how people treat us. I'm NOT trying to say that we should ignore these things. You don't have to be friends with jerks, you don't have to want anything to do with them, but you do need to love people. How people treat you affects an entirely different spectrum, this one about respect. You may have no respect for politicians and tons for your mentors and best friends. That's a good thing. But we're talking about the spectrum of hatred to love, and I'm presenting the idea that love and hatred are not felt: they are a choice.

How then do I define love? Well again, as I addressed last year for this holiday, love comes in different forms. We love our special lady different than we love our parents and we love our parents differently than we love our educators, our favorite foods et cetera. But I'm not talking about being in love with anyone or anything, I'm not even talking about affection. I'm talking about loving people because they are people, made in the image of God and not for any other reason than that. I'm talking about rooting for the well being of every human being because they are human beings. That's what I'm talking about and that kind of love is a choice.

An additional disclaimer because I've gotten into fights with people over this and I want to be sure not to confuse people. Loving people is absolutely NOT a message of tolerating whatever people do and whatever people believe and support.

Loving people DOES NOT mean that you approve of the things people do or believe. I want to set this up correctly. I cannot handle this model of universal truth where what's right for you must be right for you and we can all do what's right for us and have peace and love and tranquility. I do not agree with many of the ideas in our world including homosexuality and the transgender movement. I will fight that one out with people and I have done so several times. That said, I'm also not standing with the people who hate people because of that. I think with issues such as these people think it's black and white. You don't support said person who does this you must be a hateful bigot. No, I don't support you for religious reasons, but I can still love you, pray for you, and root for your well being. I'm still praying for you, I'm still treating you like a human being, I just disagree. This applies with the big scale issues I've mentioned and also on smaller things. Disagreeing is okay, it's part of what makes us human (although I don't think it should be on issues that are black and white painted as sin. Good luck finding someone who supports murder, I'm not sure why this isn't the case with other sins), and we can go so far as to talk these disagreements through, but they do not need to interfere with the presence of love. Basically, I disagree very strongly but I'm not hating you because I disagree.

We're all people guys. People screw up, people mess up. We're all broken people. Choosing love means choosing love because we're people, made in the image of God. It means feeling for their best interest. When someone is having a bad day you empathize with them because you know how that feels, and it hurts you as it hurts them. Because we're people. We're all sitting in broken places with broken lives and we don't know the story. We can disagree, we can talk disagreements through, but love must be a non-negotiable fact of each and every one of our relationships.

And love can be tough. I have a friend that I wrote about recently who is going through a hard time. I'm praying for her to get stronger through this experience though. I'm praying she has broader shoulders, not a lighter load. I'm praying that God works through and is glorified through her experience. I hope it gets better, but I also pray that she gets stronger. I'm not necessarily rooting for the ease and prosperity of every person. Frankly, here in America, out of love I'm usually rooting for the opposite because isn't it true that we could all do with a little less opulence and a little more faith? Love means rooting for the cure of the disease, not the symptom. It doesn't always mean the easy path. Sometimes it means hoping for change and challenging people who are already in tough situations. Life is a battle. Love is a battle. But we must keep loving.

I base this out of the love that has been given to me. Not from my parents. Not even from my beautiful girlfriend. I base this on the love from Jesus Christ because "while we were still sinners Christ died for us." I didn't deserve that. No one did. No one does. He loved the unlovable. We're all broken people guys. So we need to choose love. Not feel it. If you wait to feel it you will constantly live in hate of almost every acquaintance you have because we're broken people that screw up. Instead, we must make a choice to love others around us together, even to love the unlovable.