An Extension of LOVE | Not To Grow Cold

An Ember to Remember: LOVE

Cliché, but love is one of the most potent forces in the world. Love is not only a powerful force but action in motion.

Love is an action that has to be practiced daily to grow. More specifically, not to grow in bitterness, resentment, hate, etc.

With so many popular things on social media, love holds the NUMBER ONE trend with over two billion hashtags. Though the word is defined and communicated across cultures in many ways, most people have a general idea of love.

Through good judgment and practice, extending LOVE helps not to grow cold.

What IS LOVE?

As previously mentioned, love is defined, communicated, and expressed in many ways. Most people have a general idea of love or what it looks like.

Two popular terms coined in culture are conditional and unconditional love. Conditional love is when a person is “only” loved for the things they do, what they say, or the way they act. Conditional love is a surface-level love. To most, it’s a selfish level of love. Most humans, if not all of us, currently are, or at one point in our lives, operated out of conditional love. Some of us are also a by-product of conditional love. Conditional love is not ALWAYS sinister; we’ve been pre-conditioned to exchange our acts of service, skills, beauty, and humor, amongst other things, for love. Conditional love can be unlearned. As people’s beliefs expand and emotional intelligence develops, they can learn to love others unconditionally.

Unconditional love “most” of the time comes with age and maturity. Those who honestly assess themselves and acknowledge their ignorance or shortcomings understand people also have their level of ignorance or shortcomings. Unconditional love becomes the extension of love. People who love unconditionally learn the importance of extending grace, empathy, forgiveness, etc., when they can. Though unconditional love is sometimes considered a weakness, it’s the opposite. It takes great strength to extend forms of love to others who may not even be deserving. Unconditional love takes time but can be reached through sound judgment and healthy boundaries.

A DIVINE LOVE

While love can be both conditional and unconditional, it’s also divine. Spoken and revered in almost every religious or spiritual belief in the world, LOVE simply follows the golden rule – “treat others as you would want to be treated”.

Followers of the biblical text believe that God is love. Believers are taught to love the way God loves. As this is extremely challenging, divine grace is provided to do so. However, if one wants to love others, one must FIRST learn to love themselves. Loving yourself first sounds selfish, but it’s not. Loving, caring, and attending to one’s needs first teaches us to do the same for others. The patience, diligence, and kindness we extend to ourselves will be what we extend to others. A simple reminder from the biblical text and the golden rule – “treat others as you would want to be treated”.

Divine love is patient, kind, humble, honest, confrontational, protective, hopeful, and merciful. It also does not negate truth, is not selfish, and shows appreciation to others.

Depending on one’s belief, walking in divine love takes time and must be practiced daily. Again, it is not always easy, but it can be done.

A LOVE THAT DOES NOT GROW COLD

The world has and will always need love. History reveals that those who decided to extend love to others shifted history—in a good way. Love has brought some nations together, provided resources for those in need, established strong relationships for research and discovery, and much more. Love paves the way for many things, small and big.

Love is NOT an excuse to become a doormat for others, consistently be mistreated, lack conflict management and confrontational skills, or have no boundaries. Again, people who love themselves would not allow others to treat them this way.

LOVE is simply the FIGHT not to become the hate, evilness, ill-treatment, or bitterness one has witnessed or personally experienced.

Love yourself. Love others – ESPECIALLY those close to you. And try not to grow cold.

An extension of love. ❤️

Matthew 24:12 | And because of the multiplication of wickedness, the love of many will grow cold.

THE GRINCH GREW A HEART BECAUSE ONE WHOVILLE DID NOT GROW COLD TOWORDS HIM...❤️❤️❤️