Saturday, February 28, 2015

Love Is Always A Choice


I was sitting around a table with a few of my students. The topic we had arrived at was a strange one: life is fleeting.

One of my students was telling me about losing her niece to a car accident 11 years prior. I sat there as I started to think long and hard about how fragile life really is. How one moment can change everything. 

One day, I was driving home from picking up lunch. The rain was pouring down in curtains and I was driving unusually slow. I could feel it. Something was coming.

Up ahead, through the dense rain, I could see a white car all over the road. Something was obviously wrong. The white car was now hurtling directly at me. In a quiet moment, I simply whispered, "Jesus". A driveway up ahead looked like a good escape. I swerved into the driveway and closed my eyes. 

The white car scraped the side of my car and ended up totaling the car.

When the police officer arrived, I stepped out into the pouring rain and was immediately soaked to the bone.

"You're very lucky," he grimly told me. "You should see the other car she hit."

The old woman had a heart attack while driving. I managed to maneuver out of her way and suffer minor consequences. From what we were told, the other car she hit going 50 mph, was crunched to pieces. I know she passed away from her injuries, but I have no idea how the other person she hit fared.

For months later, the words, "you're very lucky" would haunt me. I would struggle with the plain truth that God spared my life that day. That he wasn't finished with me. That he had more work for me to do here. That my existence was worth something.

Those are heavy truths to carry around when you've been skating through life without much of a purpose.

As the months progressed after the accident, my life was wreaked with betrayal and hurt. And I often asked God, "Why?" 

Why did he spare me for this? Why did he keep bringing more truths to the surface? Why did he keep asking me to love in spite of it all?

Finally, my husband asked me, "Can I just have my happy wife back?"

And I wept.

Because it was hard to be happy in spite of so much hurt. 

But my husband's words pulled me out of a deep depression. 

God didn't spare my life to watch me relentlessly suffer in my pain. He spared my life to teach me a great lesson in spite of the pain. Love is always a choice. In spite of the pain. In spite of the betrayal. In spite of the hurt. In spite of the carelessness of others.

Love is the choice. And one we should always make. 

Tomorrow, you could wake up without someone you truly love.
Have you been good to everyone today? 
In spite of the hurts they have caused you?
In spite of their mistakes?

Love is always a choice.
Don't let pain consume you.
Let it make you better.
Learn a few lessons.
And believe that no matter how hurtful some people are, there is always good at their core. 
You just may need to dig a little deeper.


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