What does it mean to love someone unconditionally? Stop here, before reading on, and voice your own definition. ….Now I’ll tell you mine. To me, unconditional love means loving someone “no matter what”. No matter what they do. No matter what I do. No matter what we bring to each other – all the good along with all the bad, including, as my dear husband would say, even the “ugly”.
Some have accused me of always “turning the other cheek” or “making excuses” and keep, in effect, saying “It’s okay, hurt me. I’ll just stand here and let you throw proverbial dishes at me.”. To me, if you pledged no matter what to someone, that’s what you do. You love them through their hurricanes, even it it causes you extreme pain. Seems very onesided, I know.
Then today, I came across the best definition of unconditional love I have ever encountered. One that keeps the commitment, but does not excuse the mistakes in love that we all make. Here it is:
“Unconditional love is not so much about how we receive and endure each other, as it is about the deep vow to never, under any condition, to stop bringing the flawed truth of who we are to each other.”
Mark Nepo speaks further on this and I can’t do it any better than he, so I’ll share his words:
“For example, on any given day, I might be preoccupied with my own needs, and might overlook or bruise what you need, and hurt you. But then you tell me and show me your hurt, and I feel bad and you accept that sometimes I go blind to those around me. But we look deeply on each other, and you accept my flaws, but not my behavior, and I am grateful for the chance to work on myself. Somehow, it all brings us closer.
Unconditional love is not the hole that receives the dirt, but the sun that never stops shining.”
Wow. That knocked me over. THAT is mature love. And, I guess, if you really care about someone, and you know they care about you, this is the way to love each other unconditionally.
But….and it’s a very big but….sometimes you love someone that has been hurt and abused and they can’t accept you hurting them at all, even unintentionally. They cannot accept your hurt and give you a chance to work on yourself and grow and change your behavior. They can only see you through the lens of their past pain. This is a time when you must love them through it, for it is often more painful for them than it is for you. This is a time when you are not “turning the other cheek”, but are instead realizing that you are not a victim. That it’s not really about you. This is the hard part of unconditional love that Nepo didn’t touch on in his essay. Instead of abandoning them, you give it to God.
In this life we are given three anchors:
Faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is love. Love overcomes all when it’s real. Not quickly, and not without pain, because real love must be honed in the fire and bent and curved until it fits us just right. Pray with faith, wake up with hope, and love will prevail.
And so, as another day goes by, I have named our home “The Anchor” (on the cape people name their homes) because life’s three anchors are alive and abide here, and ….I have written.
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