LOVE AND ABUSE

The Cherokee writer Joyce Sequichie Hifler writes, “Love and abuse are never compatible. When someone claims to love us regardless of how they treat us, we should take it with a grain of salt. It is the cry of someone who needs to lean more than to love. Need is a net thrown over a prey. It is a spider tightening the threads of its web to catch what it needs. Love doesn’t threaten and intimidate one minute and practice persuasion and promises the next. Love is not just emotional words. It is the need to give and support and protect, even when comfort is threatened. It is not manipulation and it is never, never abuse.”

Paul, an apostle, wrote, “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.  Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.”

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.” Jesus