LOVE WITHOUT EXPECTATION...

I watch the people in my life chase after the elusive and I totally get it. But so much heartbreak is wrapped up in people not meeting your expectation- not saying the right words, not doing the right thing, not being in the right place at the right time. It’s unrealistic and it’s unfair.

This week my intention is to love without expectation. Just full-fledged, wholly abandoned love for those in my life whether or not they have the capacity to love me back. I have all I need and I won’t run out of love.

Author, Eugene Peterson, wrote:

“Every day I put love on the line. There is nothing I am less good at than love. I am far better in competition than in love. I am far better at responding to my instincts and ambitions to get ahead and make my mark than I am at figuring out how to love another. I am schooled and trained in acquisitive skills, in getting my own way. And yet I decide, every day, to set aside what I can do best and attempt what I do very clumsily– open myself to the frustrations and failures of loving, daring to believe that failing in love is better than succeeding in pride.

All this is hazardous work; I live on the edge of defeat all the time. I have never done any of these things to my (or anyone else’s) satisfaction.” (from “A Long Obedience In the Same Direction”)

Whoa. WHOA. He’s right.

I don’t like the idea of holding love for ransom. I don’t like the idea of equating love with winning.

Now, please don’t read this and take it to mean that abuse or neglect is something you should allow to persist in a relationship. That isn’t love.  I’m talking about wanting real love and being willing to give real love in order to find it. Not recklessly. Not flippantly. But taking a risk to treat people how they’d like to be treated in the hopes that one day (even if it’s not right now), they’ll be able to pay it forward. Be the first.