Love Them Anyway
If you have any relationships with any human, chances are you have been let down a time or two. People can be mean, cold, uninterested, and just plain hurtful. They may hurt you intentionally or even unintentionally. They may be living in complete and utter unawareness of the fact that they hurt you.
However, you have been called to something different. You have a light inside of you. A light that when it shines is love, kindness, and gentleness. A love that even when it is hurt, doesn’t feel satisfaction out of hurting back, but instead feels worse when you do.
One of my all time favorite poems is the Mother Teresa Poem Anyway.
People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway.
What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, will often be forgotten. Do good anyway.
Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway.
In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.
I have this poem hanging in my classroom right next to my desk. Each day when I see it, I am reminded how incredibly difficult other people can be, but my job isn’t to wallow and hide under a stump when the going gets tough. My job is to keep loving them and do good anyway.
Each day, whether it is with my students, my own children, my husband, my friends, my family, or people I interact with at the store, I simply need to show up with kindness. Even when they are irrational or self-centered, I need to show up and offer them forgiveness. Even when they wrongfully accuse me of things, I need to show up and keep my head held high and offer them kindness.
This is exactly what Jesus did. If you want to be like Jesus. Show up. Even when people let you down, love them anyway. Show them kindness anyway.
Jesus tells us in Matthew 5:44-47, “But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get?…And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others?”
This is what the Mother Teresa poem is trying to express. People will hurt you, but use the light inside of you to love them anyway. People will be all the wrong things and let you down over and over, but give them another chance anyway.
You have been called to be different. You get the chance to show people a love that is unique and one of a kind. With the same kind of love Jesus has shown you, give it away to others. If it is hard, then lean into the Spirit dwelling inside you and ask Him to give you the strength to love them anyway. Ask for help to have the same attitude of endurance and encouragement that He has for them.
When you can give Him space to work in you like this, your light will shine all the more brighter and people will see you are unique and different. So go ahead, let your light shine anyway. This post is in coordination with the Verse of the Week on Romans 15:5, and the Prayer post titled, Help Me to Love Them Anyway, and the post on Stories to Inspire and Pull at Your Heartstrings titled, Icky Worms.