Suffocating Love and Liberating Love

Have you ever loved someone so much that you were heartbroken over their choices? You knew it was their right to do what they were doing and yet you were crushed to the core that they chose something you believed was wrong for them?  You could see the way ahead was full of treacherous consequences and you knew that path would not bring them happiness, so you mourned their choice and you mourned their path. Maybe your reaction even made them feel bad or like less-of-a-person, but you were in so much pain over their choice that maybe you couldn't see it amid your own world crashing down from your giant and broken heart.

OR, have you ever loved someone so much that you wanted to teach them things? Maybe you wanted to teach your little helper how to crack an egg, how to fold laundry, or how to disinfect a toilet.  Did you do it FOR them or walk them thru it with directions? Did you let them try? Did you let them fail? Did you ever get to a point where you trusted them to do it on their own? 

Have you loved in a way that required you to give EVERYTHING, until you had NOTHING left to give?

Have you loved in a way that made you so exhausted you became apathetic and dropped all the expectations? Has your love taken you to a crossroads where there was nothing more you could do but throw someone you love to the wolves in a tough-love style and make them figure it out on their own? 

Have you loved so much you wished you could force someone to do what you felt was best for them? Has your love actually hurt others even tho you didn't intend to?

When it comes to all the ways the human heart can experience love for another, I have most recently found that true love--the way I currently understand God's love--is the kind of love that allows you to want for someone else to have the very thing they hope and dream for themselves, whether or not it is what you would choose for them.

That is a liberating kind of love. It involves trust. It will literally free the person you love from the suffocating trap your original love had actually built for them and it just might lighten your own heart in the process. 

Love can be painful and difficult. You can love someone with your whole heart and still get it wrong. True love for others is the kind of love that lets them become, in their own way and on their own terms, exactly who they desire to be.