THE LOVE THAT HEALS IN WIDOWHOOD!
I am writing about LOVE this week. Defining unconditional love being the ultimate love you can express to anyone. How Love heals and restores the most broken soul from pain and brokenness. This is very much applicable when a widow is walking the path of recovery. The Trauma and distress of losing a husband is can only be healed completely by the unconditional love expressed by people who surround you at this time.
This article aims to explore and define what love is and what love is not. How it is easily identified when demonstrated in the people who support you while walking out of widowhood. I will also reference a heroine who epitomised ‘Love’ in all her expressions.
WHAT IS UNCONDITIONAL LOVE?
The ultimate kind of love is classed as Unconditional – defined in Scripture as –
Love is patient and kind, love does not envy or boast, it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way, it is not irritable or resentful, it does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices with truth.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.
1 Corinthians 13:4(ESV)
The question to ask is how do we express unconditional love in our ordinary lives towards each other?
Unconditional Love is an act of complete concern and service to another. It is one we give and do not expect a return.
WHAT LOVE SHOULD LOOK LIKE.
1.It is care shown and given to another through love and attention. It is trying to meet the needs of another at a given moment, with no expectation of reward.
2.Love is being honest and yet tough, yielding to what is true not giving people what they want to hear.
3.Love is giving time and total active listening to what another has to say.
4.Love is not judging nor forcing your perspective but trying to understand another person’s point of view.
5.Love is being open to relate and express how you perceive the given situation with love.
6.Love is finding tools and resources to help people.
7.Love is not self-motivated, but people motivated.
8.Love is being very patient and kind when required most.
9.Love is being constant, resilient, and steadfast even when results are not in sight.
10.Love is unrelenting and open to hear and offer options/ideas
11.Love is finding and getting the right support for yourself to be better equipped to serve another person.
12.Love unites and builds.
13.Love is about preserving for others coming after.
14.Love is managing your speech content and words to others.
15.Love is admitting you need rest to recharge and gain new perspective.
WHAT LOVE IS NOT.
1.Not forceful and conditional.
2.Not easily giving up when the road gets very tough and uncomfortable.
3.Always hurried and impatient.
4.Not being tactful in opinion.
5.Not condemning the personality.
6.Not respecting boundaries.
7.Not exploitative.
8.Love DOES NOT condemn.
9. You do not push or impose.
10.Not manipulator.
AN EXAMPLE OF LOVE PERSONIFIED!
Unconditional Love is the ultimate emotion you can offer to another. Mother Teresa is an example of the love I am trying to explain. Mother Teresa’s devotional work among the poor and dying of India won her the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1979.
One of the great humanitarians of our age, Saint Teresa of Calcutta, as she was called after her canonisation in 2016, showed the world how to love and serve the less fortunate around us. Small and diminutive in size and stature, she made up for it in her zeal and dedication to the people she loved and helped—most often those who were seen as outcasts and marginalized by their communities.
When the devoted nun of Albanian descent won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, she donated her entire cash prize to the poor in India.
“NOT ALL OF US CAN DO GREAT THINGS. BUT WE CAN DO SMALL THINGS WITH GREAT LOVE.” — MOTHER TERESA
In her long life, she touched the lives of millions through her presence and acts of charity, as well as the truths she shared from her experience of faith. As someone who embodied the servant nature of Christ, being his hands and feet to others, she left us with enduring wisdom to inspire our faith.
In her words and especially in her actions, we see that a life of love—however big or small, quiet, or recognised—is significant, meaningful, and powerful.
- One of her famous quotes is.
“It’s not how much we give but how much love we put into giving.”
When you are in pain, as many widows are, the best healing is to find the unconditional love expressed to you by another.
When individuals exude this kind of unconditional love, it is always powered by a very close attachment to our Creator- the three in one, God the father, the son, and the Holy spirit.
So complete healing comes from the giver of unconditional love manifested in great heroes like Mother Teresa to mention just one.
Explore today great heroes of faith and givers of unconditional love by doing a google search, you will be amazed.
