Does It Really All Come Down to Love?

While Nathan shucked corn and Don sliced a bag of okra at the kitchen table, I emptied coffee cups from the dishwasher. The night before I'd fed my friend, Bonnie, since her arms don’t work due to ALS. As I lifted spoonfuls of fried okra and fresh creamed corn into her mouth, the southern fare got my attention. On the way home, I stopped by Kroger’s and bought necessary ingredients to surprise my farm-boy husband with a good old southern meal on July 4^th.

As I defrosted chicken and prepared corn meal for frying, conversation grew serious. The recent SCOTUS ruling still dominated thoughts and Nathan had a blog he wanted me to read. The writer spoke the fine line between truth and love as many have in recent postings. While he’d hoped to keep a firestorm of response from resulting due his expressed belief that loving homosexuals would make more of difference than fighting them in court, comments grew fierce.

Nathan sliced chicken. Don carved corn from the cobs. And our intense exchange continued.

“Does it really all just come down to love?” I asked, “Is it really that simple?”

“I don’t know,” Nathan replied.

It seems a bit simplistic. Very simplistic. But if we really lived and loved like Jesus, the world would look a whole lot different - a veritable no-brainer.

But since we talk about love, fly rainbows high, and create movies that beckon us to believe in happy ever after, what’s gone wrong? There’s a lot of talk about love yet little demonstration. When the worst happens and darkness descends, how many of us stand undaunted, assured, and perhaps even at peace?

“Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed. His compassions never fail. They are new every morning” (Lamentations 3: 22-23).

How about in the grocery line? At the gas station? In Fed Ex when they won’t explain why they want to charge you almost double what their 1-800 number service quoted?

That’s when I lost it last week.

I needed to mail Sam asthma medicine but forgot the holiday weekend approached. When overnight delivery became the only option, the $25 quote from their one eight-hundred number didn’t seem such a bad investment to keep him breathing. When I stood at the counter with package in hand, however, the clerk asked for $39 and couldn’t or wouldn’t explain the difference. So I called the 1-800 number again, received the same quote, hurried to a store employee who quickly cut me off. My voice rose in intensity as I searched for an answer, which is when she looked at me sternly and ordered, "Calm down, Mam."

I didn’t calm down. I started to shake. Baffled by not getting an answer, yet being called down, I left the store. In a huff.

But oh I wish I could have remained calm.

Jesus did.

“He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearer is silent so he did not open his mouth” (Isaiah 53: 7).

Knowing I could send the package for $25 somewhere in Atlanta, I got in my car and called the 1-800 FedEx number again. The 1-800 man encouraged me to go back into the store. With him on the phone, things went very smoothly indoors and the package arrived safe.

But those are the moments I'm talking about. The ones where your peace is rattled, your integrity questioned, and you feel undone by someone's perception of you.

Can we speak love even then? Or at least not lose control?

"As a sheep before her shearer is silent so he did not open his mouth."

Sometimes living a life of love requires action. Sometimes it simply requires staying silent and laying down defenses.

Man, I've got some work to do.