Who’s Up for a Little Unconditional Love?

Yes, please!  Who doesn’t want unconditional love?  I’ve been thinking about this wonderful gift recently and want to share my ruminations with you all.

As I look back on my life with Dale, I find that I’m going through a process similar to panning for gold.  I’m shaking the pan around, letting the junk and dirt fall through the screen and what I’m left with is the gold nuggets.  And one of those nuggets is Dale’s unconditional love.

I have always been grateful for that.  I never once questioned his love for me or his faithfulness to me.  It was an amazing gift and one that I did not take lightly.  Oh sure, there were times I took it for granted because it was always there.  And we often fail to appreciate something until it’s gone.  Clichéd, but true.

When a heart is hurting, it’s natural to look for something to ease that pain.  So this is where I land – reminding myself how incredibly fortunate I was to have someone love me unconditionally for decades.

That doesn’t mean we didn’t have arguments or get mad at each other or have a fit from time to time.  But we always knew that those times didn’t change our love for each other.

Dale was much better at it than I was.  I struggled in those last years as I lost so much of him – and it was replaced with the difficulties of caring for an “old man with dementia.”  Of course, that’s not who he ultimately was, but it was the reality of the life I was living for the last few years of our marriage.

So now I live with a very sharp, painful 2-edged sword.  I continue to deeply grieve the loss of this man who loved me with his whole heart.  But that pain is a constant reminder of something very, very good – and very encouraging to me.  The depth of that pain is a direct reflection of the depth of my love for Dale.  I too, loved him with my whole heart.  And my grieving is proof of that, in the midst of the heartache.  It assures me that, despite those last hard years, he has always had my heart.

What role does unconditional love play in your life?  I hope some of you are blessed to say the same about your spouse.  But I know that’s NOT true for so many.  Often our “princess (or prince) dreams” fall apart when life’s realities hit.  It may seem like such a foreign concept as to suspect it’s really just a myth perpetuated by the greeting card business.

But perhaps you have a parent or child or sibling or best friend who loves you unconditionally.  Take a moment to think through that.  Does someone come to mind?  I hope you are blessed with that.  Maybe let them know how much you cherish it.

Receiving unconditional love is amazing, but it’s not the only side of this coin.  How about GIVING unconditional love?  Who could YOU bless with unconditional love?  It’s a question I must ask myself as well.

If you’ve been on the receiving end, you understand its power.  Why not bless someone (or many “someones”) with that gift from you?  Maybe when they get to the end of their life – or yours – they will thank God that they had someone who loved them unconditionally for decades.

Our fairy tale version of unconditional love doesn’t really match the reality of this world, does it?  That’s because nothing in this fallen world even comes close to perfection.  But guess who DOES get unconditional love exactly right?  Of course, it’s God.  Even though you can’t physically run to him, or throw your arms around His neck or feel His embrace, His love is there.

One of my favorite scripture snippets is from Jeremiah 31:3 where God says, “I have loved you with an everlasting love.”  Wow!  It can’t get any better than that!

So no matter how much or how little unconditional love you have in your life today, you, too, can experience the perfect, everlasting love of our Father.  Put your trust in Jesus and His finished work on the cross.  Then one day when your life is over, that same love will be there waiting for you through all eternity.  Then you can experience the reality forever more!

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—

Ephesians 2:4-5