Love isn’t just something you stumble into, and hope will stay. It’s a choice – one you make every day, in moments big and small. It’s deciding to show up for someone, even when they’re not at their most lovable.
I remember one experience with Ben many years ago. He’d just bitten me – hard enough to draw blood and leave a mark – and I was still smarting, both physically and emotionally. We were in the park when it started raining. Without thinking, I opened the umbrella and put it over him, allowing the rain to fall on me. Not because he’d “earned” it in that moment, but because I know him. I know he loves me, even when he misfires. And I still wanted to love him back.
Choosing love isn’t exhausting when you see it as a gift, not an obligation. It’s joy in action – the quiet satisfaction of protecting, caring, and forgiving, simply because you want to.
As 1 Peter 4:8 reminds us, “Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.”
In the end, love is less about falling once and more about choosing, again and again, with joy in your heart and hope in your hands.
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