Love is unconditional.

My two biggest personality flaws are the fact that ninety percent of the time I refuse to feel and about eighty percent of the time I refuse to forgive.

For a long time I didn't consciously know about that eighty percent, as a Christian I'm called to forgive others as I have been forgiven and up until recently I thought I did just that. The thing is, someone who refuses to feel can't and won't muster up the empathy, or any other fuzzy feelings required to begin the steps of forgiving someone.

That would explain a whole lot.

After coming to that recent conclusion, I've been working on myself a lot. I've been working on not thinking dark thoughts, reliving bad experiences, or planning what I'm going to say when something "inevitably" comes up. Every time I've gotten angry with someone in the past few days I say "love is unconditional" over and over in my head until all desires of lashing out are squashed by the reasons why I love the person I'm angry with. It's pretty neat. I've remembered a lot of good things in the past few days.

Today, though, I turned on a dime and refused to remember love is unconditional when Kirk called me and told me that an old church acquaintance finally apologized to him about some harsh, unfair words that were spoken to him right after the death of his best friend.

Why was I so angry? I had wanted this man to apologize so much for three years that when it finally happened my heart was completely hardened towards him and I was fully prepared to refuse to forgive him. So I began to pace about the house and tried to push the issue aside when God corrected me.

So I guess it's time for you to give up?

He said, gently. Almost with amusement.

I couldn't even ignore it, I had heard it so clearly.

"Yeah, I guess it is." I said, sighing as I threw towels on the bathroom floor in disgust.

Love is unconditional. Love is unconditional. Love is indeed unconditional.

How many times did the Israelites directly disobey God and He took them back? How many times have I directly disobeyed God by not forgiving someone and all He's done to counter it is gently remind me of the unnecessary battle I fight within myself by not letting go?

I've failed God so much and He forgives me time and time again. The least I can do is extend that same forgiveness to those who have failed me. We're only human, but love is unconditional.