A Word of Encouragement from Elizabeth Handford
Love isn’t really love unless it’s unconditional love. Unconditional? Yes, unconditional: there is nothing you can do that will make me love you less. You could call it affection, but not love, if certain things have to change before you will truly love. You might like the thought of your being in love. It might be self-delusional, or self-love. But genuine love doesn’t have a list of things I don’t like about you and that I intend to fix before I give you love.
Unconditional love is discerning love; my love will help you to overcome challenges in your life, but I will love you no matter the circumstances.
Thank God that His love for us is unconditional, without regard to our behavior. The Scriptures say, “Jesus, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.”(John 13:1). Jesus faced the most excruciating, painful death that wicked men could devise. He was rejected by the very people He was giving His life to save. And He loved them to the bitter end.
And that’s the kind of love Jesus wants us to have for those He has put in our lives. So His explicit command to us is:
Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander,
along with every form of malice.
Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other,
just as in Christ God forgave you.
Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children,
and walk in the way of love,
Just as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us
as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Ephesians 4:31 – 5:2 (niv)
A man said to me, “I wish my wife were different. When I’m home, she just sits there. She’s a good cook, she keeps the house spotless, and she was a wonderful mother. But she just doesn’t give me what I need. She just sits there.”
Might it be that his criticisms of her made her lose heart? Had she done her best to please him, and found it was not enough? Was his love conditional, dependent on her behavior? He had promised to love her “for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, as long as we both shall live.” Somehow, had he forgotten that solemn vow he made before God?
A mother said to me, “My son is such a mess. I love him, but he makes it very hard for me to really love him.” The boy was only twelve years old. He was not outwardly rebellious. He was quiet, withdrawn, not talkative. But he struggled with the temptations all young people face. The one person he had a right to expect would love him unconditionally, his mother, was the one who held him at arms’ length, who judged his silences as offences, who had a shield in her heart against him.
Walt and I once lived in a neighborhood where, our neighbors said, an old witch lived. Actually she was very old, alone in the world, very deaf, almost blind, and very poor. The neighborhood kids deliberately baited her, taking a short-cut through her yard and trampling her flower garden, jeering as they ran. But she wasn’t a witch. She was a forlorn child of God, desperately needing someone to show her God’s enduring, eternal love.
May God help us to love each other as Christ loved us, unconditionally, to the very end.