receiving love on Love and Pain

Merciful God, we turn away from the pains and cries of our world. Overwhelmed by its brokenness, we ignore the call to engage and love those who are hurting. Father, forgive us, strengthen us, and hel...

We frequently repress our desire for love because love makes us vulnerable to being hurt. The word passion, which is used to express strong loving desire, comes from the Latin root passus, which means...

There is no remedy for love but to love more.

The Sermon on the Mount contains some of the most difficult ethical injunctions in all of scripture. Many of us do not know how to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. Martin Luther K...

Love alone makes heavy burdens light and bears in equal balance things pleasing and displeasing. Love bears a heavy burden and does not feel it, and love makes bitter things tasteful and sweet.

If I asked you the same question I asked my patient Aaron—“What do you want?”—and you could for a moment put aside the predictable anxiety that comes with it, I’m confident that at some point in your ...

There is the great lesson of “Beauty and the Beast”; that a thing must be loved before it is loveable.

Love hinders death. Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love. Everything is united by it alone. Love is ...

We may remark in passing that to be blind and beloved may, in this world where nothing is perfect, be among the most strangely exquisite forms of happiness. The supreme happiness in life is the assura...

We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.

The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.

“Would I rather be feared or loved? That’s easy. Both. I want people to be afraid of how much they love me.”

To love is to will the good of another. .

Everyone longs to be loved. And the greatest thing we can do is to let people know that they are loved and capable of loving.

Life is precious. Not because it is unchangeable, like a diamond, but because it is vulnerable, like a little bird. To love life means to love its vulnerability, asking for care, attention, guidance, ...

Gracious God, you are quick to show us your love. yet we soon forget. We live as if we have to earn your love, perform in order to receive your approval, and succeed in order to receive a smile. These...

And we are put on earth a little space, That we may learn to bear the beams of love.

Our God, you love us unconditionally and with great sacrifice, yet we reject your love in search of another love other desires. We have make harmful decisions while on this search rather than acceptin...

Gracious God, we come before you with humility, recognizing that doubt has led our decisions. We have allowed fear to lead, rather than love. Because of this, we have been unkind to our families, ou...

May you refuse to do battle against the parts of yourself that need love the most. Set down your sword. Say hello to every shard. Hello, grief. Hello, sadness. Hello, anger. Hello, madness. ...

Anthony of Padua opened every class he taught with the phrase, “Of what value is learning that does not turn to love?”

Holy Spirit, open our minds to the truth that hurts and the truth that heals. Open our hearts to the love that challenges and the love that embraces. Amen.

The strong bond that unites the vine and the branches has to do with the sap that flows through them. Jesus does not here use the word “sap,” but nonetheless gives a lengthy excursus on love in a way ...

All-loving God, we confess our motivations are often not influenced by your love. We act according to what will bring us the best outcome. We love ourselves before we love you. Help us to grow deeper ...

Gracious God, we have lost our ability to love for the long haul.  We give up, lack follow through, and withdraw when things get difficult.  Yet you call us to a loyal, never-ending love towards other...

The fact is there is nothing that we are doing that God could not raise up a stone in the field to do for him. The realization of this puts us in our true place. Though, lest we get too knocked down by...

Mark Rutland humorously recalls a survey asking Americans which words they most long to hear. As expected, the top response was, “ I love you. ” The second was, “ I forgive you .” ...

Happy marriages are based on a deep friendship. By this I mean mutual respect for and enjoyment of each other’s company. These couples tend to know each other intimately—they are well versed in each o...

While the search for the divine has been somewhat crowded out in modern times by our busy and overstimulated lives, it is still one of the most universal of human strivings. C. S. Lewis describes this...

O Holy God, we come before you in humility, recognizing we have resorted to competition rather than compassion. We have doubted the depth of your love for us, and in turn have been unloving to our fam...