Crazy Love
crazy love -n. 1. Love (shared by two or more persons) that makes no sense, for it cannot be based on logic, rationale, nor deserved. It is the byproduct of whole-heartedly committing to love each other despite the following:
- negative traits
- annoying behavior
- inability of the other person to be perfect, read your mind, take out the trash without being asked, remember to return your favorite shirt, etc.
This love outlasts raging frustration, goofiness, forgetfulness, “irreconcilable” differences, physical changes and a barrage of other ailments.
That’s my attempt to define crazy love as first discussed in the previous post. I would like to reiterate how rare and valuable it is to find someone to commit to the good, the bad, and the ugly. I would also like to submit that crazy love may also be synonymous with unconditional love. I know; unconditional love makes you think of an automatic loving response to anything the recipient would do. For instance, unconditional love would require that even though your best friends didn’t invite you to their dinner party, instead of feeling rejected you would completely understand. Or, if your husband neglected to write down his ATM withdrawal for the umpteenth time causing three bounced checks, instead of being infuriated you would just have a good laugh. Not hardly. Unconditional love happens when you can fight through the spewing venom and find a way to forgive and still adore.
It’s the process of becoming family. I think most families have this crazy love. My sister and I know each other well enough to write the other’s autobiography. And though there are times when we really can’t stand the other’s behavior, decisions, mindsets, and so what; we have this unconditional love that can’t be destroyed. I think it’s easier with family because we are born into the commitment; we can’t stop being sisters. Our blood requires that we remain family. And since we know that will never change, we choose to forgive and keep loving over and over.
We must choose this with our non-blood family – to forgive and keep loving over and over and over and over… Possibly it’s those we have chosen to share our lives with or maybe we can even think large enough to include all of mankind. Aren’t we all sisters and brothers in this human thing? Is it possible to summon this kind of craziness for all God’s creation regardless of the grand canyons that seem to divide us? Maybe we can’t summon enough like, affection, or understanding to reconcile all of our differences. But maybe we can begin a journey to discover how grace can open the door for this illogical, unconditional love.
I’m reminded of a huge lesson I learned about grace. I had been heartbroken by a friend who I loved very much. The hurt was so great and I thought so intentional that I could not comprehend forgiving her. Oh, okay, I would forgive her; I just couldn’t ever like her again. I was feeling the bitterness destroying all my affection for her and feeling like a pretty horrible person for not rummaging up enough grace to let go of it all. After much prayer and meditation, I thought about my relationship with my sister and how we have the capacity to disappoint each other so greatly because we expect so much from our relationship. Yet, we always find our way back to complete love. In fact, our love for each other never seems to be in question. That’s grace; that’s unconditional love. I couldn’t conjure up enough grace to make the hurt go away; but I could recognize where grace already existed in my life and apply it to this situation. The understanding of how I could love my sister even when she disappointed me helped me extend this same grace to my friend.
Yes, crazy love takes effort. It isn’t comfortable or constantly warm and fuzzy; but it’s never boring. It isn’t always practical and it’s almost never fair. But like a rose, it is beautiful in spite of its thorns. So go ahead and call it crazy to love even when it doesn’t make sense. I just think that’s the difference between love and affection.
Have you ever felt love that made you crazy? What was it like? Regarding love, what roles do choice and emotion play?
- negative traits
- annoying behavior
- inability of the other person to be perfect, read your mind, take out the trash without being asked, remember to return your favorite shirt, etc.
This love outlasts raging frustration, goofiness, forgetfulness, “irreconcilable” differences, physical changes and a barrage of other ailments.
That’s my attempt to define crazy love as first discussed in the previous post. I would like to reiterate how rare and valuable it is to find someone to commit to the good, the bad, and the ugly. I would also like to submit that crazy love may also be synonymous with unconditional love. I know; unconditional love makes you think of an automatic loving response to anything the recipient would do. For instance, unconditional love would require that even though your best friends didn’t invite you to their dinner party, instead of feeling rejected you would completely understand. Or, if your husband neglected to write down his ATM withdrawal for the umpteenth time causing three bounced checks, instead of being infuriated you would just have a good laugh. Not hardly. Unconditional love happens when you can fight through the spewing venom and find a way to forgive and still adore.
It’s the process of becoming family. I think most families have this crazy love. My sister and I know each other well enough to write the other’s autobiography. And though there are times when we really can’t stand the other’s behavior, decisions, mindsets, and so what; we have this unconditional love that can’t be destroyed. I think it’s easier with family because we are born into the commitment; we can’t stop being sisters. Our blood requires that we remain family. And since we know that will never change, we choose to forgive and keep loving over and over.
We must choose this with our non-blood family – to forgive and keep loving over and over and over and over… Possibly it’s those we have chosen to share our lives with or maybe we can even think large enough to include all of mankind. Aren’t we all sisters and brothers in this human thing? Is it possible to summon this kind of craziness for all God’s creation regardless of the grand canyons that seem to divide us? Maybe we can’t summon enough like, affection, or understanding to reconcile all of our differences. But maybe we can begin a journey to discover how grace can open the door for this illogical, unconditional love.
I’m reminded of a huge lesson I learned about grace. I had been heartbroken by a friend who I loved very much. The hurt was so great and I thought so intentional that I could not comprehend forgiving her. Oh, okay, I would forgive her; I just couldn’t ever like her again. I was feeling the bitterness destroying all my affection for her and feeling like a pretty horrible person for not rummaging up enough grace to let go of it all. After much prayer and meditation, I thought about my relationship with my sister and how we have the capacity to disappoint each other so greatly because we expect so much from our relationship. Yet, we always find our way back to complete love. In fact, our love for each other never seems to be in question. That’s grace; that’s unconditional love. I couldn’t conjure up enough grace to make the hurt go away; but I could recognize where grace already existed in my life and apply it to this situation. The understanding of how I could love my sister even when she disappointed me helped me extend this same grace to my friend.
Yes, crazy love takes effort. It isn’t comfortable or constantly warm and fuzzy; but it’s never boring. It isn’t always practical and it’s almost never fair. But like a rose, it is beautiful in spite of its thorns. So go ahead and call it crazy to love even when it doesn’t make sense. I just think that’s the difference between love and affection.
Have you ever felt love that made you crazy? What was it like? Regarding love, what roles do choice and emotion play?
posted by Misty Bradley | 1:07 PM
2 Comments:
Life is a story complete with rising actions, climaxes and falling
actions. The best stories weave mulitples throughout, and that is what
our lives are...a series of ups and downs...we need both to have a
climax!
Cheers to Crazy Love and all the ups, downs, and hang on tight moments!
i never knew crazy love till I knew the Lord. I was just thinking about this yesterday. How it use to be so easy for me to hate someone, to cut someone down, to think about the idiotic things they do and then write them off.
It's so different now. And I can't pinpoint how or when I changed. It wasn't any effort on my part, it was just God's crazy love for me that gave me a crazy love for people, even those that hurt me.
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