Unconditional Love

1 Corinthians 13:4-8a New International Version (NIV)

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails.

Love.Never.Fails. Now people, we fail all the time. We fail AT love. We fail each other. But love, it never fails. In its purest sense, the love of Jesus will never fail us. If only WE could love like Jesus. But isn't that our goal? True unconditional love. I feel like I first learned about unconditional love from my precious Dolly-mama. I wish I could say I learned about it from my parents, but unfortunately I can't. My dad taught me from an early age that love had to be earned; but my mom, she loved me unconditionally. Her love for me never wavered, no matter the choices or mistakes I made. Likewise, my love and admiration for her never wavered a bit, even through my teens when she was 'the meanest mom in the world'. I learned how to love 'warts-and-all' from her.

I was blessed to find a man who also loved like Jesus and loves me unconditionally as well. Loving like Jesus has taught us how to love, grow, forgive, love our babies unconditionally, and forgive some more. To me the most amazing thing about unconditional love is that it doesn’t keep score. Dolly and I never kept track of who called who, or how often; we just knew that we would each be calling the other. Every day. Several.times.a.day. Because we loved each other, UNCONDITIONALLY. That love…without keeping record, without keeping track, it is so rare and pure. And so hard to find. I had it with my Dolly-mama, we have it with Jay’s parent’s (the best In-Laws in the World) and family, our children have it, and I have a few select friends who I love and love me unconditionally.

When it comes to children, our children, love ‘is not self-seeking’. In other words, when we became parents we put our children first. Not above God, or our marriage; but we became less selfish, less self-serving. Unfortunately this is not true of all parents. But Jay and I had both been raised in situations where we had seen amazing examples of unconditional love, but also non-examples and we were determined to love our children unconditionally. We never want our children to wonder if they are loved, to feel that they need to do ANYTHING to earn our love. No child, young or adult should ever feel that way. Love always protects.