Choosing to Love

I few weeks ago, I wrote about our experience with the loss of our dog.  I wrote about being heartbroken, angry and grateful.  At about the same time, I went to a Diversity Summit. The worship leaders sang a song with these words:

In the midst of pain, I choose love

In the midst of pain, I choose love

In the midst of pain, 

Sorry falling down like rain

I await the sun again.

I choose love.

It reminded me that love while love is an emotion, it's more than that. Love is an action. Because it is an action - a verb - we can choose to do it, or not. We can choose to love, as we are called to do, or we can choose not to love.

I don't mean to imply that forgiveness is as easy as saying we'll do it. I don't believe that feeling love (or not) toward someone is as simple as making the decision. What I mean is that we choose how to act. We choose to act with kindness or not. Acting with love, even in pain, is a choice. It's not always an easy choice, but it is a choice.