52 Lists: Week 9

discipline.
liberty.
undiminished.
expose.
patience.

What a week! And I'm behind. The words above summarize last week--one of unexpected delights and frustrations. But all the while, I have been coming eye-to-eye with discipline--training, adversity to improve behavior. I've been tested on what love is and living it out in my own life as I never have before.

Like a marathon, it hasn't been a picturesque or beautiful sight. Many times through this week, my heart has been exposed and released of the toxins it has contained: selfishness, abrasiveness, and criticalness. The mud has been in my eyes. My breath has been short, but I continue to run forward. I've wanted to give up. I've wanted to throw in the towel. But love doesn't do that. Love is patient. Love is long-suffering. Love just loves. 

So, my heart is called to be an anchor: steady, even-tempered, quiet, certain. As a child who is told to sit still for the first time, so my heart has been whirling around--desiring to get up, move, and push out all of those who consistently fail in my expectations of them. But love doesn't do that. And I am called to this higher place--patience.

Love doesn't diminish. It's undiminished. It lifts up and calls others to come up to higher places. It encourages and builds up. Like a hot air balloon blows hot air into its vessel--causing it to go higher and higher, love does the same. It blows upon the hearts of others and gives them the liberty to keep reaching upward--to elevate itself vertically. It doesn't keep a record of wrongs or love when it's convenient or when the love is reciprocated. Love just loves.

And so--though I am deeply flawed, I am called to do the same. It's not convenient. It rarely is. It's not easy. I've found it can oftentimes be challenging and difficult. But I'm called to love just the same...

..Especially when everything around screams for me to stop...

Determined to love fully. Completely. Wholeheartedly. Unreservedly. Exploding into the depths of my very being.

Learning to Love Outside the Lines,

Hellen