Sometimes it’s what love *doesn’t* do

Love is absolutely a real live, action word, a verb. Sometimes though, especially around a day like Valentine’s Day, it can feel like there’s one giant scorecard keeping track of everything that love does. It’s pretty easy to start measuring Love just by what we hear it say and see it do. Amongst a generation of overachievers and oversharers though, perhaps it’s better not to. Because sometimes love is as much about what it doesn’t do, as what it ever does.

It might be harder to find this evidence, because, well, it’s not screaming from the rooftops, holding armfuls of flowers, or preparing beautiful meals and posting them online. I mean sometimes it really is some of those things. But sometimes it much less picture worthy.

Besides, what does patient, or kind, or “rejoicing in the truth” actually look like?

Sometimes it looks like cold jello on a plate, and letting someone take a nice long nap. It might not look like much, but if you’ve ever been on the receiving end of it before, you know that it, in fact, is.

If you look around with eyes that love, you find lots of evidence of the kind. It happens every day, all around this globe. Yet we still look for the roses. These acts of love, they are the roses. It’s these small moments, where understanding hearts show love personified, that are most beautiful.

Love is the words that are unsaid, the bitter ones that get swallowed back.

The judgment it withholds.

Love is the thoughts that it doesn’t entertain.

The pity party it doesn’t throw.

The resentment it throws off its back each time it tries to crawl on.

It’s the hugs it doesn’t give. The space it holds for discovery, and forgiveness.

The silence it allows. The words it turns instead, only to prayers.

These things are love too.

Valentines Day love may be unabashed and extravagant, more dressed up and lovely. There is a blessed space for that. But so often, love might be found in the dirt, in the trenches of life, mucking its way through things. It’s the purest kind of love that is found there, and also the strongest.

Love with its work-boots on.

This generous and selfless Love crawls quietly into trenches alongside you when necessary, and stays out if you need that, too. It does what’s right for someone else, even if a different path might look more admirable, or more lovely. Flowers might be nice, but they aren’t always what’s needed.

This Love can be misinterpreted.

But it doesn’t care what it looks like to anyone else. This love breaks the molds of what it’s ‘supposed’ to look like. It accepts what already is. It does what is needed, not what it wants. It requires no fanfare, no applause.

It serves fish when it wanted steak. It stays in when it wants to go out, or goes out when it would rather stay in. It holds a tongue and practices a breath of patience. (Even when it comes up a bit short, it tries.) It sees the child dressed in their own wild style, and allows for it, because it hurts no one and compromising nothing, except one’s own parental sensibilities.

It’s how we are even loved by our Savior. He shows us how to do it, giving, on a cross while many despise the thought. He doesn’t overwhelm us with His many (wonderful!) thoughts. He doesn’t over-talk (a lifelong quest for me to learn!) He gently waits for us to reject or embrace him.
His love is immeasurable but he doesn’t force itself, or fill the room with flowers, or belt out the song by your window until you’re ready.

His love is self sacrificing, withholding at times, of both what he wants, and also what we deserve. He offers gracious, unimaginable Loving-kindness instead.

Most of us can’t even manage self love with everything we know about ourselves, but His Love puts on the work boots anyway, doesn’t strong-arm us, gets alongside us if we want him to, and somehow, helps us make something beautiful out of things eventually.

So how does this relate to your life, your relationships? When you know that this is how you’re loved, you can love like this.

This Love plays the long game. Gives the jello. Waits it out. Loves from an arms length. And absolutely embraces when someone is ready.

The next time you feel the space, know that it’s okay.
Remember that you can love well, even from a distance. It’s the kindest things sometimes. And that distance can be covered in a instant.

It is an act of love to love someone the way that they need to be loved. In action, or inaction, with words or in silence. From close or afar.

Love isn’t diminished by any of it, but in fact, it grows there. It lives in these spaces more than we know.
Love is about what it does, and also, precisely about what it doesn’t do sometimes.
Fill up those trenches with loving- nothings. Sometimes it’s the best thing that you never do.