Love

This week God has been teaching me about loving others the way he loves them. As I reflect on the week I realize he has been teaching me this, it was not clear however, until tonight at church. Butch preached about Love. It was about allowing God to love you and loving others. God is teaching me how to love some of my students. Some are super sweet and easy to love, but others not so much. God is teaching me how to love them. I am sure many have parents who love them by allowing them to do what they want or don't love them at all. I have had one student this week ask me several times if I love him, "the way you love your students" as he said. I always answer with of course I love you, and he says, thanks, I love you too. Coming from him, that means a lot. As he appears and acts like a "hoodrat". I also have another student who went through a lot in August as a friend was killed. The way he deals with this, is he acts like he is King of the World. You know deep down, he is hurting, and there is nothing you can do. I have a lot of trouble loving him sometimes because he thinks he is "King of the World", and always has that attitude. At church tonight, God put it on my heart, that I need to work on loving this child and praying for him, as this is an act because he is hurting.

At church, Butch went over 1 Corinthians 13: 4-8a "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails."

If you really stop and think about this and what it means, it is hard to have this kind of love. I love when it says "Love is not rude", I had to stop and think, Cara this means when someone is rude to you, you cannot be rude back! That is NOT love.

I know this might seem like a lot of rambling (it is after midnight), but as Christians we are called to love all, we don't get to pick who we want to show love too.