This isn’t the blog post you were supposed to read. There was another blog post for this week. I struggled with writing it. It wasn’t coming together as easily as other posts. I said to myself, I need to work through it, push harder and just get it done until I wrote “The End.”
Instead, God put it on my heart to write a completely different post. Instead of writing about the upcoming Valentine’s Day and how we can celebrate love, it became about the need for authentic love.
A tragedy hit our small community this week. A teenager didn’t see any other way out than by taking their own life. Our population is relatively small so the impacts of this death have rippled through our community.
I don’t know this family, but most of the people in my office do. Their kids played on sports teams together, had sleepovers or attended school together. Even with all this interaction with friends and the community, this person saw no other alternative than a permanent solution to a temporary problem.
Feelings of suicide develop when someone feels alone. They might not be physically alone, but the sense no one understands them or their problems.
God understands.
God loves us beyond anything we can comprehend. He wants us to turn to Him during the trials of our lives because it’s what a loving person would do. In 1 John 4:16 (NIV) it says, “And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.”
God’s love and appreciation are everywhere around us if we are willing to look. It’s not only in the sunrise or the sunset and the beauty of God’s creation, it’s when a text comes in from a friend at the exact moment you need it or an article pops up in your daily feed which speaks to your heart. God is in the details of our lives.
Let’s celebrate authentic love. God loves us freely, without strings attached. There is nothing we can give Him which He does not already have. His love is a gift we need to open. We are to love Him and to love one another. John 15:12 (NIV) says, “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.”
Love isn’t about a certain day on the calendar or even a certain time of year. We need to celebrate love in order to show others how we love and appreciate them; to demonstrate the impact this person has on our lives and how deeply they will be missed if they were out of our lives.
I challenge us during this month of love to stop and think about why we do what we do. What is our intention for each day? I hope it’s to shower those around us with love because in 1 Corinthians 16:14 (NIV) it says we are to “Do everything in love.”
Share in the comments below how you share the love God has put in your heart to encourage others.