LOVE AND LOVE Reflections

If you could get rid of all your fears – death, rejection, losing, and criticism, how different would your life be? If you could be free to attain all your dreams, goals and aspirations, how would the world mean to you? We are often deceived about the powerful and destructive force of fear because it does not produce violent outbursts like anger.  But fear, which breeds into various negative thought patterns and emotions – anxiety, worry, pessimism, doubts, timidity, inferiority, depression, social shyness etc. is just as powerful and destructive if not to others, to the fearful person, like anger.  Fear is the belief that you are powerless and that you can’t do anything. Someone rightly defined FEAR as “False Evidence/Expectation Appearing Real”. Causes of Fear Experts assert that one major factor of fear is one’s temperament traits. Almost all temperaments have tendency towards fear – Melancholics and Phlegmatics are more fear-prone. Parenting and upbringing is ...

Love though threatened, keeps pursuing; though challenged, keeps moving; though mistreated, remains gentle. Many a time and oft we show love, but our love goes unnoticed, unappreciated and unreciprocated, and it leaves us thinking, “Should we continue to show love?” But if it is really love, it doesn’t waver when it is not received the way we wished it to be.  If love can be told to quit loving and it does, then it is not really love. Love forbears! Love bears all things . . . 1Cor.13:7. It means tolerating, putting up graciously and patiently with someone’s weakness when it encounters the area of your strength. This is the nature of love which makes it possible to withstand all the wrongs of others, behave well towards the unseemingly behaviour of others, show kindness continuously to the ungrateful person, think about the best interest of enemies, and forgive the wrongs of people and not count it against them. Someone rightly said, "Relationships without forbearance...

Photo: shutterstock.com We basically have two kinds of human beings: those who think of life as a privilege, hopeful and exciting – The Optimists – they are those with the Positive Mental Attitude (PMA); and we have those who think of life as an endless string of problems, hopeless and boring – The Pessimists – they are those with the Negative Mental Attitude (NMA). Love has positive thoughts, and is hopeful and enduring. Someone rightly said, “What we wish for is what we hope for, and what we hope for is what we expect.” Love Has Realistic Hope Love is hopeful, but it doesn’t ignore the difficult realities of life. Love is positive, but it doesn’t attempt to ‘drain the entire sea with a teaspoon.’ Love accepts the fact that things are not well and everyone has weaknesses, but deals with them with a positive mindset. The fact is that there are some things we will never be able to do or change, no matter how we try! But we must find a possible productive and positive wa...

Photo source: shutterstock.com Love . . . believes all things (1Cor.13:7). During my days at the university, I gave up a Master of Ceremonies (MC) role to a first year student and friend who had little experience, but obviously endowed potentially. I approached him and told him, “I would want you to take my role and be the MC on Sunday.” Hesitantly he told me, “I have never done it before.” But upon encouragement and reassurance to guide him, he obliged. Now Sunday came, and everyone was expecting me as the MC, but there he was on the podium. Though shaky from the beginning, he built confidence along. I stood at the back admiring his moderation and leadership style, and whenever he raised his head and saw me nodding my head and whispering, “you can do it”, he was the more motivated to put up his best. He did it! He has emceed many events ever since. When I was completing school, he sent me a text message thanking me for my influence in his life. Love always puts t...

Actions speak louder than words, they say. But words have so much impact on our lives. Many have lived a life of misery because of words of judgment, criticism, and failure that have been spoken to them on regular basis. On the other hand, many have lived a life of fulfillment because of words of blessings, compliments, and success that have been spoken on their lives. One of my favourite Bible quotations puts it right; “ Don’t use foul or abusive language. Let everything you say be good and helpful, so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them” (Eph.4:29 NLT). Words are seeds which when sown into people, produce fruits and eventually manifest in the attitude and behaviour of the person. We can surely manifest our love to people by the words we speak to them. Words of Compliment Words of Compliment are powerful communicators of love. They are best expressed in simple and straight forward statements such as: “Wow! You look beautiful in that dr...