Five Minute Friday

SO, it's not Friday anymore, but that day kinda passed in a blur with Gabriel sick and back to the hospital again, so I think that I will pretend that it is still Friday for a minute and participate in Gypsy Mama's Five Minute Friday anyway.




The Rules?  Write for 5 minutes without editing.

The Topic?  Hard Love

Ready???

GO!

Hmmmm...Hard love.  Is that kinda the same as tough love?  Or strong love?  For me, tough love is when I don't let my oldest (or youngest, for that matter) daughter wear what she wants to wear to school even though she 'needs' to wear it to be 'cool'.  Tough love is when I tell her:  I'm not here to be your friend.  I am here to be your mother.

Hard love would be what I sometimes feel when everyone is out of control and I feel like throwing in the towel and just giving up on tough love and letting the chips fall where they may.  Sometimes it's hard to love tough.

And I also think that hard love is what God's love is for us.  I mean, it must be REALLY hard to love us.  Sometimes I can't believe how I treat Him, and He keeps coming back for me (figuratively, of course.  God never goes anywhere, it is US who stray and return to the fold),.  So that is hard love, too.

And yesterday, on Good Friday, while I sat in the pew at church and I listened to the words of the Bible telling me how it all went down that time long ago, I saw strong love.  Christ's incredibly strong love for us that he died for us...for me!  And even as horrible as the personal pain was to be hung on a cross, He had to suffer so much more...for me.  He had to suffer all my sins on His innocent shoulders and know that His father, God the Father, had to turn His back on Him because he couldn't stand to see all that sin.  Complete abondonment.

That was strong love.

And there's the beeper.  Hmmm...this was a little tougher today.  Let's see what happened...