Learning to Love.

We’re all a little more alike than we might think. We’ve all been through some stuff we didn’t necessarily want to go through, and we all likely have a little bit of hurt, maybe at this moment or perhaps from another time that we’re still carrying around. But I don’t think it's any coincidence that we’re all here trying to figure it out. I think God put us all here together to get to know each other, to sit in the messes together, to learn how to love one another and maybe even to hurt together too. Isn’t it kind of funny that that’s what seems to bond us the most - the pain, the broken hearts?I remember staying up till 4 in the morning with my roommate in college because we were so upset over well, the typical hard college stuff. But even in that time of our breaking hearts, there was just as much laughter as there were tears. I thought that nights like those might come to an end when college did, but they didn’t. Now it looks like coming home from a long and exhausting day of work to sit around the living room with my friends, and let me tell you, we share about the real stuff going on, from the depths of our hearts. I have quickly become so close with these friends I have these days. And I’ve come to realize it’s because we are all in it together. If one is dealing with the death of a family member, we are all dealing with it. But this is when we learn to love each other best - when we’re just simply there for each other. When we show up. When we don’t leave in the mess. When we can make a friend laugh after they’ve been crying. Isn’t that the best kind of laugh anyway? It’s kind of a glimpse of how the light can always conquer darkness.This incredible and crazy thing happens when we let Jesus into our relationships. I became friends with this high school girl while I was a college leader a couple years back. We hung out here and there, and slowly the conversations got deeper over time. I watched her go through her high school years, and now she is a college sophomore. We have become rather close, and my heart is hurting because a boy broke hers. And let me tell you, this is not by my human nature. This is purely the compassion of the holy spirit. Sometimes I can’t help but to question, why is this hurting so badly? There are many things the world would suggest for me to tell my friend during this season of her life. Things that would make her “feel better." However, I know and have learned that that stuff is just temporary fillings. Sometimes in the messy moments, we don’t really know what to do or say to one another, so we have to lean on Jesus. And in those moments, He teaches us how to love.A recent time I can remember where I felt so loved was the night before I moved to a new city. I went over to a dear friend’s house that night before. When I walked inside, I looked into the living room to see all of my favorite people (give or take a few) sitting around together. I was grinning from ear to ear, so happy to see all of them of course. But as I sat with them, they began taking turns to pray for me. They knew what I needed. I didn't need them sitting around a room telling me how well I'll do in my new city, or how much home won’t be the same without me. They knew I needed prayer, I needed Jesus along with me.Our culture has created its own definition of love. I think a common definition or belief of what love looks like is to make much of someone, or make them feel better or feel better about themselves. But it’s not about an ego boost. Because that only lasts temporarily, right? We can be so built up and confident, and then one thing goes wrong, and we’re right back down and defeated. Jesus tells us really loving someone looks like doing everything in our power to help them to know eternal happiness. I imagine it looks something like this…“Some men came carrying a paralyzed man on a mat and tried to take him into the house to lay him before Jesus. When they could not find a way to do this because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and lowered him on his mat through the tiles into the middle of the crowd, right in front of Jesus” (Luke 5:18 -19).I’ve been thinking about this word “love.” And how it’s so thrown around and overused in our culture. But what do we mean when we say things like “we need to love more?" Love is not easy. It is going to take a bigger power than our human selves to love "more.” And perhaps there is only one power big enough to teach us and able us to truly love. That power is our creator Himself.words by Megan Sauers and photo by Sara Beth Pritchard