|Love Means|
To love means loving the unlovable. To forgive means pardoning the unpardonable. Faith means believing the unbelievable. Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

We want love. We need love, but it can be hard. We want forgiveness, we need forgiveness, and then we find it can be hard to extend forgiveness. We want faith. We need faith, and then life gives us a situation that drains our faith. We want hope. We need hope. Then, life is hard, and it isn’t easy to find hope.

These virtues are not those of convenience. These are the building blocks, the DNA that we need to live. Often, they are easy to receive. They are gifts, but they are gifts that are forged and fortified as a result of trials. Frequently, they are hard to extend…

When he walks out…
She wants forgiveness…
You’ve believed and believed and believed… and still nothing…
You want to hope, but it seems too grand, too far away.

But moments like these allow us to see the true depths of what love looks like and what it will do. We experience what forgiveness looks like and how far it will go. We get a glimpse of what faith can reveal and the heights it will reach for. We realize what hope is willing to endure and the length of time it will hold out.

When life is hard and overwhelming, it’s easy to believe these are out of reach. However, it’s in these exact moments that the extraordinary (miraculous?) becomes possible.

Love grows most powerfully when it’s unconditional. Forgiveness is most freeing when the burden is too heavy or not ours to carry. Faith deepens when it sees us through to the other side. Hope is most encouraging when it’s the light in the darkest moments.

Gratitude is the catalyst that allows the virtues of love, forgiveness, faith, and hope to grow. That helps us to grow. Gratitude helps us see beauty, even in brokenness. It reveals how challenges shape us to help us grow in strength, resilience, and compassion.

As we shift our focus to view challenges not as obstacles but as opportunities to deepen our faith, broaden our scope of forgiveness, inspire others with our hope, and grow in love, our perspectives change. As we’re able to keep going, we realize that this is something to be grateful for.

Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.

Be Encouraged.