some thoughts on people

some things i've been thinking about...

loving a person just the way they are, it's no small thing
it takes some time to see things through
sometimes things change, sometimes we're waiting
we need grace either way

hold on to me
i'll hold on to you
let's find out the beauty of seeing things through

there's a lot of pain in reaching out and trying
it's a vulnerable place to be
love and pride can't occupy the same spaces baby
only one makes you free

hold on to me
i'll hold on to you
let's find out the beauty of seeing things through

if we go looking for offense
we're going to find it
if we go looking for real love
we're going to find it
-loving a person, sara groves

loving people is hard. it hurts.
but it makes life beautiful. and without the act of loving other people, life wouldn't be worth anything.

does telling my story invite you to be a part of it?
i think it does...
when i let down my guard and share a piece of my story with you, i'm inviting you to come in.
come in and see the real me.
do you want to be a part of who i am?
the thing with invitations is that they can be rejected.
so its easy to pretend that i don't offer any sort of invitation when i share bits of myself.
i can shrug my shoulders and hope you don't see how desperately i want to love and be loved.

what a gift, a scary and daunting gift that God gave us in the ability to love other people-

"it is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. all day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations.

it is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics.

there are no ordinary people.

you have never talked to a mere mortal...
it is with immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit-immortal horros or everlasting splendours. this does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. we must play. but our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously-no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.

and our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner-no mere tolerance, or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment.

next to the blessed sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses.

if he is your christian neighbour, he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also christ vere latitat-the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself-is truly hidden." -the weight of glory, c. s. lewis

most of these thoughts weren't even my own-but they've given me lots to think on-and even more to act on.

help me jesus, to see people as you do. help to distinguish between love and its cheap imitations and parodies. help me to be patient and be grace-filled as i wait. i want to love a person just the way they are-the way that you love me.