A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. John 13:34

Jesus, I can’t.

I’m hurt.

I’m sad.

I feel betrayed.

How can I love them like You?

I’m angry.

I don’t want to forgive.

I want justice.

I want them to get it.

Love them anyway.

Jesus, do you know what you’re asking?

To love them anyway, I have to put myself aside.

I have to forgive them.

I have to let. it. go.

It’s too much – I can’t.

Love them anyway.

Lord, You have to do it through me.

I don’t have it in me.

In your weakness, I am strong.

Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. God showed how much He loved us by sending His one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through Him. This is real love – not that we loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. Dear friends, since God loved us that much, surely we ought to love each other. 1 John 7-11

Love is a super power that covers a multitude of sin.

It’s messy and inconvenient, it requires a giving up, a sacrifice to give.

Love always gives.

There is no fear in love.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.1 Corinthians 13:1

Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing.

It bears all things.

Believes, hopes, endures.

Love never ends.

I love because I am beloved.

Jesus offered mercy for my mess.

While I was still in sin, He died for me.

He loved anyway.

If I am His disciple, I must do the same.

Even though it isn’t easy.

Even though it goes against my flesh.

I trust the One who loves me best and most to work it out.

Forgiveness is an act of love – one that sets me and the offender free.

There is no love without freedom.

Freedom to choose.

Love is a choice.

When I am disappointed, hurt, let down, I can choose love.

Love instead of holding a grudge, a debt – the debt of you owe me.

Forgive my debtors as my debt has been forgiven.

Love anyway.

Love puts others ahead of me and what I want or hope for.

Yet loving someone doesn’t mean I have to stay in a toxic relationship.

It doesn’t mean I continue to take abuse.

Sometimes loving someone means entrusting them to God.

Trusting He can do what I can’t.

Sometimes love means letting go, walking away.

My part is to forgive, pray and trust God.

Be loving in my responses and actions.

Ask the Lord to guide me.

And love anyway.