Menu Close

Love: Choose to Share It

by Joanne Wiklund

I love words and definitions. A little sign at my house came from my Aunt Mae’s house. It’s like a game prize you’d get at a carnival, but the message is clear. “Love wasn’t put in your heart to stay. Love isn’t love till you give it away.” That’s a big part of our Christian mission in life, to give Love away.

Often we don’t get to do that. We don’t even get to say “Goodbye.” For inexplicable reasons, love leaves us. I heard a pastor say, “Sometimes the very best thing that happens to someone else is the worst thing that could happen to you.” There is a hole there, where the person who means so much to us used to be. It hurts. Our love is still there, but that special one isn’t reflecting it directly back to us. Grief is grief and must be dealt with. Through the years I’ve found for me there is only one way. Go straight through, come out the other side where the hole is still visible and it still hurts.

Losing someone leaves us thinking we can get back to “Normal” soon. Never gonna happen. It could be better than it is now, but it will never be as good as it was when they were here. As we deal with what I call “Land Mines” left behind, whether physical or emotional stuff, we get bogged down. Prayer is the answer. Make it as constant as Change. The difference between Old Normal and New Normal can be Winter and Summer in comparison. Especially this winter.

We must embrace Change. It’s constant. We think we have no choice in change. But wait! We have a choice. Not a new one at all. An old one, a gift to us from our Creator. We get to choose how we grieve. We get to choose our attitude. We get to choose to let others help us through this. We don’t have to grieve alone. Do it your way, but choose to let others help you when you’re ready. It makes such a difference. I thank God for all my family, friends and even total strangers who try to help me through changes that come. That’s what makes my supply of love grow, so I can pass it on to others. Your experiences might just help you help someone else cope with their grief for their special person. If you do that will help you too, and make you glad you chose to share.

I Peter 1:8 “Whom having not seen, ye love: in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and and full of glory.” 

I Peter 2:7 “Unto ye therefore which believe He is precious.”

II Timothy 1:13 “Hold fast the form of sound words, … in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.”