The Love Paradox

The beautiful shape of my wife’s hands

LOSS taught me love in a paradoxical reversal of fortunes. What was loss was gain. And it could be learned no other way. Like Jesus said, I had to lose my life to save it.

I learned more about love from loss than I could ever learn about love otherwise. What we would never ever ask for has nested within it, God’s irrevocable gift; a most remarkable compensation. In this case, an eternality of learning, upon which is tantamount to irony.

A perfect thing — love — is to be expressed imperfectly. The more imperfect love is, the sincerer it is.

Can we progress far in the reality of (the spiritual) life without love?

Yet, love is a complete paradox. The way of perfection is best actuated imprecisely.

God is love. God is perfect. We are sinners. Yet, we are given to, and are able to, love.

It wasn’t until I accepted how flawed I was, recognising for the first time that the drive for perfectionism comes from fear, that I saw that even in imperfection, love is possible… and it’s enough.

So good is God that He made love, not for the perfect, but for the good. Anyone who’s intent on doing good can love. And the genius of love is it is especially expressed through imperfection, for it is a uniquely human thing to do.

That’s right. In an imperfect world, and though it is, of itself, perfect, love is exemplified best through imperfection.

God’s grace imputes itself all over the human expression of love. The more imperfectly we love, the sincerer we are perceived. God has made love for a common and possible purpose. Everyone may love. Because everyone who can choose, can choose for love.

Love is perfect, but, the choice and action of being loving allows much for fallibility.

Thank God that what He made perfect, love, may be best expressed imperfectly.