Love is a choice
The older I've gotten, the more I am convinced that love is a choice. Everyone has beautiful and divine parts to them, and love is choosing to overlook the bad parts and see the good. I think too much in our culture we confuse it with a feeling, giving rise to the idea that one can fall out of love. But, in my opinion, "falling out of love" is simply seeing the bad in a person instead of the good, and using that as an excuse to stop communicating and stop trying in a relationship.
That said, because love is not a feeling, it is possible to love someone and be annoyed at them. It's possible to love someone and be frustrated or mad at them. Love is not a feeling, so feelings can coexist with it. Just because you love your family doesn't mean that you are never going to be upset when your brother breaks something of yours or if your sister borrows something without asking. These kind of frustrations are normal in a relationship, but love is choosing to see the good still, and to keeps lines of communication open.
You can love people, and still keep them out of your life because they don't treat you well. I have a friend who I still greatly appreciate the good parts of who he is, I love him as a person, but he was always very unkind to me and so I asked him to leave me alone. Love is giving that person permission to still have good things about them in other areas, even if they treated you poorly, while not letting them hurt you again.
Love is realizing that every person on this planet is a child of God who was valiant in the pre-mortal existence and reminding yourself of that fact when you think there is no way a person has any good in them. It is asking God to let you see other people the way He sees them. It is remembering that everyone has the impulse to do what it right, and most of the time the person sitting across from you thinks what they are doing is good.
I am not very good at applying all these lessons, but just like everyone on the earth, I am trying. We are all trying. We are a family of imperfect beings trying to be perfect. Half the time we don't know what the right way to do something, and the other half we know but can't apply it, but we are trying. That is all God is asking from us, so that is all that we should ask from each other. Love is realizing that others are trying, and trying as well.
That said, because love is not a feeling, it is possible to love someone and be annoyed at them. It's possible to love someone and be frustrated or mad at them. Love is not a feeling, so feelings can coexist with it. Just because you love your family doesn't mean that you are never going to be upset when your brother breaks something of yours or if your sister borrows something without asking. These kind of frustrations are normal in a relationship, but love is choosing to see the good still, and to keeps lines of communication open.
You can love people, and still keep them out of your life because they don't treat you well. I have a friend who I still greatly appreciate the good parts of who he is, I love him as a person, but he was always very unkind to me and so I asked him to leave me alone. Love is giving that person permission to still have good things about them in other areas, even if they treated you poorly, while not letting them hurt you again.
Love is realizing that every person on this planet is a child of God who was valiant in the pre-mortal existence and reminding yourself of that fact when you think there is no way a person has any good in them. It is asking God to let you see other people the way He sees them. It is remembering that everyone has the impulse to do what it right, and most of the time the person sitting across from you thinks what they are doing is good.
I am not very good at applying all these lessons, but just like everyone on the earth, I am trying. We are all trying. We are a family of imperfect beings trying to be perfect. Half the time we don't know what the right way to do something, and the other half we know but can't apply it, but we are trying. That is all God is asking from us, so that is all that we should ask from each other. Love is realizing that others are trying, and trying as well.
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