"I'm a relational fraud—I never truly loved people well, just performed loving actions."
How it sounds in your head: I hugged when I wanted to hide, I listened when I wanted to run, I showed up when I wanted to stay home. Was any of it real love, or was I just doing what I thought good Christian women do? Did I love people, or did I love being seen as loving? My whole relational life feels like a performance.
"Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."
-- 1 Corinthians 13:4-7Source: religion - The church taught you love is a feeling, not a choice, so every time you chose love without feeling it, the enemy called you a hypocrite instead of obedient.
You remember countless moments when you served, listened, cared, and hugged while feeling absolutely nothing—or even feeling annoyed, tired, reluctant. The enemy says real love is effortless emotion; you've felt the effort, so you must be fake.
Jonathan loved David even though his own father threatened to kill him for it, even though it cost him the throne, even though it was politically stupid and personally dangerous. Love that costs you something isn't fake—it's the REALEST kind.
I REFUSE the lie that love without emotion is fraudulent love. IT IS WRITTEN that love suffers long, is kind, endures all things—and I have DONE those things for ninety years, even when I didn't feel them. Love is not a feeling; it's a choice, and I chose it thousands of times. IT IS WRITTEN that greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for friends, and I laid down my SELF—my preferences, my comfort, my convenience—again and again. That's REAL love. The BARAK blessing means I am blessed coming in and going out, and every threshold I crossed to show up for someone was blessed, regardless of my internal emotions. I loved well because I loved OBEDIENTLY, and obedience is the highest form of love.
The Father is weeping with joy over every time you loved when you didn't feel like it, because THAT'S when love looks most like Jesus, who went to the cross 'for the joy set before Him'—not present joy, FUTURE joy, obedient joy. Your effortful love was the most Christlike love of all.