The phrase “unconditional love” runs through my mind for the thousandth time as I lie awake in a much-too-expensive Hollywood, California, hotel room. I stare at the boxed ceiling as those two words are whispered to my soul time and time again. Is that really what I’m doing here? Am I here because I am trying to love unconditionally?
You see, a year ago I made a promise to a friend I’ve known 2/3 of my life, a friend I love down to the tips of my desperately-needing-a-pedicure toes. I promised I’d show for his California event and even stay at this very hotel. However, we had a disagreement two weeks ago, a disagreement about fundamental beliefs to be sure, but still only a disagreement. Love does not mean I have to approve of everything you do or vice-versa, no? However, the upshot is that I’m not sure I’m even wanted or welcomed here anymore, and my friend’s not talking (Probably a good sign I should’ve stayed home.) But a promise is a promise, and love is love. Love is Love.
Have you ever noticed how difficult we make it to love each other? (By the way, I am including myself.) Things get said, feelings get hurt, communication gets shut down, and real, true connections get severed. How do we love through the unlovable, painful times? How do we stay standing firm in that place of whirlwind feelings and torturous, neurotic self-doubt? How do we hold on until the mess clears and the dramatic tension falls away and I can just be me, and you can just be you, and everything that stood between us that felt so enormously objectionable shrinks down to the size of a dust bunny?
I can deal with a dust bunny. (I bet you can, too.) What I’m finding difficult is this crippling command that we love each other unconditionally because in my neurotic tendencies I’m terrified that right now I am not being loved back, that I am being rejected. But here’s the thing: I am being loved back -by the One who commanded me to love, someone who never rejects me. That has to be enough.
And when I’m being honest with myself, completely, brutally honest, I do believe I am here to show this man, my dear, kind friend, that I love him without condition or reservation. But my knee-jerk, emotional response, the fear, is ALL about me, and that is not Love. Nope, that is ugly, tarry selfishness which has no place in His heart, and I sooo want it to have no place in mine either. Nor does selfishness have a place in my relationship with my friend, no place in his special moment, and I would give anything to cut the selfishness out of my soul. But my only option is to offer this struggle to the One who Loves beyond all understanding for He is the only one who can take this mess of pressurized carbon and, perhaps, someday, chip carefully and perfectly away revealing the glittering diamond only He can see hiding beneath.
The Unexpected Life 