To Love is to Risk Losing

My son-in-law has a new motorcycle.

My husband repaired someone’s roof this week – in 90-degree heat – alone.

My brother had a stroke.

My father was just released from the hospital with more tests to come.

To love is to risk losing.

To love is to be vulnerable to other people’s choices.

To love is to refuse a heart of stone for one that bleeds.

To love is to be like Jesus.

My friend listens to me talk for an hour about my work stress.

My daughter stretches her own boundaries to include others in planning a shower for her friend.

My mother wants to binge watch Netflix at my house to decompress from a week of hospital waiting.

A young woman asks to have coffee and talk about marriage and work and life.

To love is to be present.

To love is to risk discomfort.

To love is to make time.

To love is to invest in others like Jesus.

My husband still thinks I’m beautiful no matter what my scale tells me.

My children treasure photos of me because it’s not my size they see.

A reader posts an unflattering photo of me, but she looks wonderful.

Our friends visit and notice what’s done about our house, not what remains to do.

To love is to see through a kind lens.

To love is to see beyond skin and scars and scales.

To love is to open our eyes to what matters.

To love is to view everything like Jesus.

This family just needs someone to listen without blaming them for falling apart.

This family needs someone to speak truth and stick around for the fallout.

This family needs time, hours of someone’s time, to adopt a healthier pattern of living.

This family needs someone to set boundaries around how much is too much.

To love is to wear mercy like a favorite pair of jeans.

To love is persevere, even when change takes forever.

To love is to be relentless in presenting truth.

To love is to lavish grace like Jesus.

Lena gets emotionally invested in the tiniest patients no one else believes will survive.

Dave and Deb left family to create a home for others in a desperate land even as their friends discussed retirement.

John shepherds faithfully, joyfully, passionately, a small but potent congregation in a small town in a small state week after week after week.

Lyle listens unwaveringly to those nearing death.

To love is to allow your heart to break.

To love is to leave everything.

To love is to see beyond the veil.

To love is to shepherd like Jesus.

Donna prays like a warrior.

Julia finds courage to lead a ministry.

Bruce tends to the tech and the heat and the lights and the holes in the roof and the alarm system in the hours when no one sees.

Kathy practices for days one piece she’ll play so that we can prepare our hearts for worship and most won’t stop talking to listen.

To love is intercede in the night.

To love is to be brave in a hundred ways.

To love is to work faithfully unseen, unnoticed, unheard, unappreciated.

To love is to serve an audience of One like Jesus.

“That which was from the beginning,

which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes,

which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—

the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it

and proclaim to you the eternal life,

which was with the Father and was made manifest to us—

that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you,

so that you too may have fellowship with us;

and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.” 1 John 1:1-3 ESV

“By this all people will know that you are my disciples,

if you have love for one another.”

John 13:35 ESV

To love is to live toward Jesus.

To love is to risk losing https://t.co/3uxXUd6Ztn What does it look like to love like Jesus? Word became flesh. #Jesus #love #amwriting

— Lori Roeleveld (@lorisroeleveld) June 4, 2018