THE ART OF LOVE
The only difference in the relationships I just mentioned is how you manifest them. In a marital relationship, the level of intimacy shared will be completely different (or should be) from a friend that you spend time with on occasion and share some of your life with. The love you show your children will be stronger in its manifestation especially when it comes to protection.
Each day, whether we realize it or not, we decide to love. Does this mean we can choose not to love others? That would be correct. This may be a simple description of love, and some may even think that I am way off base. Even though this sounds simplified, its execution is much more difficult.
Bringing us back to the question at hand: Is it possible to love others even if we disagree with some fundamental belief they hold or with a decision they have made? If you define love by your feelings, then any situation that brings a bad feeling your way will make you second guess your relationship with anyone. If you define love by your level of commitment to someone, then when a difficult conversation needs to happen, and you cannot find any middle ground, agreeing to disagree may be your only option. However, this should not stop you from loving them.
The closest we can get from truly understanding this concept of love as a commitment and being able to love even in disagreement is a parent to a child. When you have a child, whether, by birth or adoption, you raise that child, care for that child, and want the best for that child. When your child disobeys you or makes a decision that puts them and maybe others in jeopardy, you don’t stop loving them. You may be disappointed. It may even hurt you to see them make decisions that you believe are detrimental to them or their future, but you don’t stop loving them. You may have to have a confrontation or a difficult conversation. This may even drive that child further from you emotionally, but it’s worth the risk.
A consistent decision and behavior that shows you love someone even in disagreement will win out in the long run. You may never see eye-to-eye on whatever it was that tried to come between you, but loving someone as a decision or an action, regardless of their response, will release you of any responsibility for their own reactions. Granted this takes an extraordinary amount of discipline. We would rather have people around us who don’t take as much work to love. You know what I am referring to. These are people who hold the same common core beliefs, have the same values, and may even look like us.
Having others around us who believe what we believe, think in similar ways, and in whom we have much in common is so much easier than develop- ing a friendship or relationship with a friend or family member who believes