By Pastor Carmen Rizzo

I was thinking this morning of those times a million years ago when I was a kid and those hearts that all the girls used to draw in their notebooks concerning their latest crushes - So-and-So plus So-and-So ‘TLA.’ That last acrostic standing for 'true love always.’ How innocent and how naive! We get so confused as to what love really is. "Love is a feeling." "Love is the Butterflies in the stomach." "Love is never having to say you’re sorry." I'm almost gagging even as I speak the words of that last saying. But here it is. The only way you will find out what true love is, is how you respond to the one that you love when they hurt you very deeply. Love is not so much a feeling as it is an act of willingness to set you aside, what you want to do, the hurt feelings that come when at times trust is betrayed. You set your self aside because true love makes the statement that I will always be there for you, even when you hurt me and crush my spirit. What we have expressed as love all around us today is not true love, but self love. Self love says, "I will love you as long as you love me, and provide for my needs and never betray me." True love is by its very nature sacrificial. It's committed to the well being of its object no matter what the personal cost, or pain. Jesus said, "No man has greater love than that he would be willing to lay down his life for his friends." That lying down can come in many ways. It can come on the battlefield or it can come and most usually does in a relationship between fallen humans who seem to be so good at hurting the ones closest to them. Laying down your life is a daily task. It's hard work. It takes guts. So here’s my point, if you want "true love always," you have to be willing to give it.

Peace.