The Gift of Loving: Love Wins When Rightfully Done

What could be the better time to talk about “LOVE” than the month of February, where “Happy Valentine’s day” has become the buzzword in many parts of the globe, particularly in social media. This is the time of year where couples (young and old alike) feel extraordinarily romantic, trying to find the words or the best gifts to express their love in their own special way.

Love exists in every corners of the world, it goes beyond words and forms, regardless of race, nationality and cultural differences. It’s a beautiful feeling and a blessing that can struck us anytime, often comes to us in many forms and mysterious ways, when we least expect it, in the most unexpected places (as the song goes!). As such, we should embrace and be ready when it comes. Some of us though may not be as gifted as others, not being able to determine on whether or not a certain person has genuine feelings for us, has noble intentions or just toying with us – thus, it is always prudent to exercise caution in anything we do to avoid red flags in a relationship. While we couldn’t see love through our naked eye, we can feel it though from the bottom of our hearts – that giddy, excitement, and “butterflies in my stomach” mode, whenever the “man” or “lady” of our dreams pursues us, that would be the start of everything, of a romantic love!

However, there is this kind of love which is considered more valuable and essential in our lives. Without this, life would be meaningless. Love is a blessing, it is a gift from God. God is the definition of love – not those kind of love normally we’ve found and read on the web which made us drool and swoon all over again. This is the kind of love that has no limits, will never fade away and would make love wins over anything else. The gift of life that God has given with the capacity to love and be loved are the very things in this life that we should be grateful about. We should be thankful for having been given the gift of loving to do anything we want on daily basis, e.g. love to work, love to read, love to eat, love to be with our friends or when we love to help others. All these gifts of loving stem from God. As the phrase goes: God is Love and Love is God.

While Valentine’s day gives us the opportunity to reminisce, cherish and rekindle our own love life, it reminds us also of God’s gift of love to us. God’s love is the best gift of love to us, the proof of which when He sent Jesus to save us. God loves us more than we can imagine. “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life.” This shows the enormousness of God’s gift of love to us, the magnitude of His love and the countless blessings which He freely offers to us.

If we only take into consideration God’s gift of love to us in our everyday lives, we won’t go wrong when we express and show our love to others. When the gift of love is being shared to others, we receive more of the boundless love of God as often as we can.

However, there are incidents in life that make us feel hopeless and stressed out because we don’t see and experience the love for us and for others too. Even with the COVID-19 pandemic, we have not really showed that kind of love that God wants from us, particularly on how we show our love to others. How would our prayers be granted if we do not make an effort at all to change our evil ways, instead we keep on repeating the same wrongdoings? This is actually what’s happening now – we see and hear not only on TV, radio and print media but also in social network sites, where differing views are thrown at each other and worse of all attacking people to the level of personal character assassination. This is depressing and downright disturbing. It seems some people have embraced and nurtured the pride in their heads (instead of humility and understanding) and hatred in their hearts (instead of love).

I happened to read a post in one of the social media (socmed) pages wherein one person was literally being mobbed by the followers of this so-called “socmed influencer” (they are labeled as such of the number of followings, organic or not), force-feeding their beliefs on her about their outrage on a certain issue. While the principle behind their belief is laudable, the way they expressed their arguments to her was alarming, with ad hominem attacks and name calling. bullying her to the core. As if they have the monopoly of knowledge and the capacity to determine right or wrong, as if they are privileged intellectuals, defeating the very purpose of their principle and beliefs because of the unkind remarks they’ve made.

I realized at that moment that if we truly care or if we are concerned of a person or a friend of how he or she would feel thereafter, at least respect should be accorded despite differences. Doing so will not only make that person happy but it will also relieve us of guilt feelings as well. Arguing, stating false opinions of others, and responding on issues with something evil, instead of good things, will definitely not make us win. Even if it’s true, it is always best not to entertain it because the choice of doing good will make “love” wins.

The Holy Father (Pope Francis), in one of his talks, stated that all of us are God’s gifts and we have to love each other. God’s love to us is unconditional and boundless. Because of this, we are requested to make our life a gift for others too.

Other people would say that celebrating love and affection for one another should be expressed everyday. There is no argument about this but the sad reality, it’s not always the case. There are unfortunate situation that we are unable to achieve a perfect relationship but we can at least strive for a healthy relationship which will make us both physically and spiritually healthy in the end. Life is not a bed of roses. Sometimes, there are so many things to do and challenges to face over the 364 days in a year, and so sometimes we neglect and fail to see the more important things in life. Most, if not all, couples do experience ups and downs in life and so at least a special day for them and for everyone who believes in love to step out and shout out the love and care that they have for each other, is but fair enough, even how simple it is.

Our love for God and our love towards our neighbors and ourselves are the basic tenets of our Christian faith. So whether it is Valentine’s Day or not, we are reminded that we have a weapon here on earth to strengthen ourselves and thwart the enemy, and that weapon is LOVE. When we have God’s love and the true love from our loved ones, and if we decide to share that love to others, we shall all be welcomed by God in His Heavenly Kingdom, as one big happy family! Hey guys, let’s make love wins by doing the right things!

Happy Valentine’s Day to one and all.

Below is My Useful Tips’ rendition of the song Love is Real by John Lennon of the Beatles.…..! Feel free to click the video! Once again, please be patient with the voice and the guitar strumming skills. It’s hilarious! Thanks!