Love or Like?
July 11, 2015 Leave a comment
Yesterday, I received a correspondence from a distant friend and was given the homework to give my opinion about the word “LOVE”. Last night, I could not even define “love” and don’t even know how to describe it.
I’ve known the Biblical love – “Love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as you love yourself”. or “the love is patient and kind, love does not envy or boast, not arrogant, not rude, does not insist on its own way, not irritable or resentful, does not rejoice in the wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth, love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things, love never ends – 3 things we must have: Faith, Hope Love – but the greatest of these is Love”
Waking up this morning at 4am, I was still confused and no words about love that comes to mind and then I began to ask myself “what is the opposite of love? The antonym for love is “hate” from the thing called dictionary but then when reflecting to my own experiences, it is not. The opposite of love is not hate.
Let’s test it:
”Hate God with all your heart and hate your neighbor as you hate yourself.” x
”Hate is not patient” x
”Hate is not kind” x
”Hate envies and boasts” x
”Hate is rude”
It does not sound right!
Numb/numbness Is the opposite of love.
Numbness is the opposite of love. Plug the word “numb” into your definition/context of love and you can feel something that sounds about right. When we don’t believe or love God, we don’t really hate God. If we don’t love our neighbor, we don’t necessarily hates them, we just don’t care about them. When you don’t love a person, you don’t really hates them – you just don’t “feel” for them anymore – lack of feeling = numbness. [my opinion].
But in the context of love and loving a person or humanity or Loving God, love really is very hard to define. At this point I’ve concluded that I cannot define or think what love is but I will tell you a true story.
Chapter 1 – 1810 Miles Rescue Mission
In 2006, I received a phone call from a person who lives in New York who was crying incessantly, I was in Texas which is 1810 miles away, that is 25 hours of driving non-stop. I was at work on “night shift” during this call and was a little bit tired already. Long story short – she found out the hardest way that the husband was having an affair with another woman [her close friend] and the whole act of infidelity was all recorded in a videotape which she replayed over and over. All I can hear from the other end was a non-stop cry. I remained calm and focused on objectivity [what can I do to help]. When the crying subsided, she told me “come, pick me up” in a humblest and most touching way . It was a cry for help that I could not ignore. I did not know what to do at the moment and so confused on what to do. I end up flying to New York that day with a one-way ticket and decided to drive her car back to Texas. I took an emergency leave that day and flew to New York. Fast forward a few hours with no sleep, I got to her apartment and started loading up her car with all her belongings. I’ve met with her few friends and said thank you and then left New York with a very heavy heart. We left around 11pm but at mile20 I noticed a noise in the engine. A flapping noise was so persistent as I pressed down the gas pedal. The flapping noise was so loud and I was thinking that an engine fan belt is slightly broken and was shredding apart little by little thus making the flapping noise. I can remember ignoring the noise at 70 miles per hour and telling myself that “this is a rescue mission so urgent that we could not make a stop to check the engine or find out what’s wrong with it or we get swallowed by the disaster” [just like a scene from a suspense movie]. The engine noise persisted and so I decided to get a hotel room. I parked the car, went to bed and did not even bother checking what was wrong with the car. In the morning, we wake up, opened the car hood and I could not find anything visually wrong with the engine and so we pressed on to our journey to Texas. The flapping noise miraculously disappeared and was able to reach my home with no issues at all. The entire journey took us ~25 hours but my total time including the flights and preparation was more than that. After the rescue mission – my body was so exhausted that it took a few days for me to realize what really just happened.
So what really happened?
What really happened was a person did horrible things to another person and I have to intervene physically, mentally and emotionally. I should not have to but I was left with no choice.
Chapter 2 – Recovery
A few months later, the person that I helped with was staying at my house and emotionally recovering slowly. Then one day, she asked me for an advice that was so simple to answer if you are not a Christian, “the offending person is asking for forgiveness” and wants to come to Texas and join with her and start over. What I mean by “a simple answer when you are not a Bible believer” – is to answer “NO”. A normal person [I’m not normal, I follow a moral code] will always say “NO” to that forgiveness question. With all the bad things being done, the harm, the emotional turmoil, the endless cry, the suffering etc. The generic answer will be a big “No”. At that point in time, the burden of forgiveness lies in my shoulder because she decided that whatever I say matters to her and she’ll listen. It did not take a week to contemplate on the answers of the question of forgiveness. “Love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as you love yourself”. I could not pretend not to know the verse as I’ve been a believer of Christ teachings for sometimes now. So my advice was, “when the prodigal son decided to come back to his father, the father welcomed the son with no questions and even throw a party for him”. Literally, my actions at that time was like that. We did not throw a party but we literally say – it’s okay, you are forgiven.
The couple recovered [I thought]. They found jobs in my hometown, lived a good life for a year, purchased a nice home.
Chapter 3 – A few years later. [not many]
It did not took many years to see tragedy again. This thing called social media, FB, email etc. sometimes ruin lovely things in life. The infidelity returned and this time it was not devastating, it was “so devastating” because it produces another human being – a son from a different woman.
Being the closest person, I was consulted again by a question of forgiveness. “Will I forgive?”. “Will I take him back ?”. I prayed deeply for weeks but then I could not pretend not to know the verse “I do not say to you 7x, but 70 x 7”. Jesus’ counsel to Peter when he asked how often do we forgive our brother who do wrong against us – “infinity” – for as long as we can [I think].
The couple recovered [I thought].
Chapter 4 – $5000.00 Get Out of Jail
Life was good again and I don’t have to provide care anymore until one day I received the familiar cry for help. I was told that the offending husband was in jail because he was accused of an attempted rape by a girl that he and his friend met in a bar. I don’t know the whole story but the story line was obvious. What’s he doing in a bar? What’s he doing with another girl? What’s he doing with all the chances that was given to him? The phone call that I received was not for an emotional counsel but it was a call for a financial help. I was asked to provide a $5000.00 cash to bail him out of jail. Instinctively, the answer of the request is a big “NO”. The wife was asking to borrow money from me whose husband did another horrible thing to her. I did say “NO” many times but the wife was begging/crying to lend her the cash and so I did because I could not pretend not to know the verse “setting the captives free”. I prayed so hard again asking for God’s wisdom and what came out from that prayer was “If you ask me for anything, will I say no” and if I say “NO” what will you feel?
The couple recovered [I thought].
Chapter 5 – Abandonment +Cancer
Recently, the infidelity continued again on a different woman and this time the offending person left the wife for good [for now, I think]. But 2 days after the offending person left, the wife received a most horrifying medical result of her life – a breast cancer. That Sunday when the offending person left the house for good, I had a conversation with him. I was not mad, I was not hating him. I told him and let him feel that what he did was very wrong.
Final Chapter
Not a single hatred in my heart even until now ever existed toward the offending person. I understand that the story was so long and probably most of you are already bored. It is important that you know the background of my life, my interaction with other people, my dealings with other people, how I handle situation and how I make decisive strategy that can make or break a family. I have to share that story to all of you because I want you all to know that the actions that I took, the feelings that I have during those difficult times are actions that relates to what the teachings of Christ is all about. Yeah, it is somewhat silly to forgive a person many times but there must be a reason why Jesus himself mentioned that topic. I don’t really know [yet].
Do I know how to define love? Still, the answer is “NO”. I honestly don’t.
But I know how to give love to someone. I know how to love someone.
1. By forgiving an offending person many times.
2. By withholding my anger towards an offending person.
3. By extending my hand and lending a rope to the person who did wrong things to me.
It is easy “to give love” or love a “kind and moral” person or a person that you like. But try loving a person who hurts you, it’s next to impossible.
Love or Like?
Liking is a stepping stone toward loving. Once… I told someone “I’m attracted to you”. Attraction or liking and loving are two different things. Liking does not get me anywhere until I take steps toward loving that person. To love a person is hard. To like a person is somewhat easy [it’s Stage2 in the Stages of Change: Pre-Contemplation, Contemplation, Preparation, Action, Maintenance] . To like what God is doing to you is easy but to love God with all your heart and mind takes a little bit of effort. To like your neighbor or friend or co-worker is easy but try loving them wholeheartedly with 100% authenticity will take time, energy and effort.
Defining love is harder, loving [to love] someone is much simpler. Love somebody and then you can define love not in words but with your actions. [a Stage 4-Action].
