For most people, February is the “love month” because it contains Valentine’s Day (which also happens to be my birthday so yes, I’m a lover not a fighter!).  As a result, you may see several posts this month that relate to different aspects of love.  Hopefully you don’t mind.  😉

I’ve been thinking about something lately that has troubled me for years.  Why is it that some people have such a hard time understanding that love shared is not diminished? Here is what I’ve always believed:  If I love one person completely, it does not preclude me from loving someone else completely.  I’ve encountered a LOT of people in this life for which this seems to be a totally foreign concept and it is something that has always puzzled me.

Some people seem to believe we are given only a finite amount of love and we have to choose how we “spend” that love.  They wouldn’t openly admit that is what they believe, but their actions certainly reflect it!  In other words, I start out with 100% of love so if I love two people then I have to split my love.  I can split it 50/50 or by some other ratio but neither person can have 100%.  Based on this thinking, the more people I love, the LESS love I have to give.  We look at love like we do money, time or other resources.  We only have so much money to give before we run out.  There’s only so much time in a day, etc.  All these things force us to make choices in how we spend these resources because they are limited.  Limited resources mean we must divide them in order to cover more ground.  THIS IS NOT THE CASE WITH LOVE!!  Love is not a “resource;” It is a gift!

Love, when it is given, multiplies.  It is not diminished because it is shared.  Think of it this way:  If a woman who loves her child with all her heart gives birth to another one, she doesn’t have to take an amount of love away from the first one to give to the second.  Her love for EACH child is 100%.  This woman ends up with a complete and total love that is twice as big as she had before!  Her love was not reduced as a result of her sharing it with another.  It was, in fact, multiplied.

The Bible tells us God IS love.  Jesus loves me, this I know…right?  He loves completely and unconditionally!  Since “God so loved the WORLD…” does this mean if He loves everyone, then you must take that number of people (billions over the course of time) and divide it in order to figure out what percent He is capable of loving you?  That is not only unscriptural but it is ridiculous!  We know this to be true with God but if God is love, then we must also remember it to be true about love.

I must confess it drives me absolutely crazy when people are so selfish that they demand the people who love them do not love anyone else or at least do not act on their love for anyone else.  I love to see and be around people who love freely because I love freely, openly and completely.  It breaks my heart when someone takes the fact that I love many people and tries to imply that I don’t care or love about him or her as a result.  I used to let that heartbreak determine how I acted or reacted so that particular individual wouldn’t feel “unloved” or unappreciated but over time I have learned that some people prefer to be judgmental and exclusionary rather than to love as love was intended to be.  I feel bad for them because they are missing out on the greatest blessings of life.

I cannot change anyone around me but I can refuse to let the negativity drag me down into a place where I begin to look at love as a “win-lose” proposition.  For me, love will always be a “win-win.”  Love is not an equation but if it was, there would actually be two of them based on the way people think:

1. Love – Love = Nothing
2. Love + Love = Infinity

I’ll just say this….”To infinity and beyond!!”

Blessings!