So here I am, sitting in Belize for class. Never thought school could actually be fun. Haha nah just kidding. I am here with my Senior Colloquium class. Basically, it's a class on Christian ethics. It's been wreckin' me in the best way! I wanna share a quote with you all and I hope it speaks to you in some way! It was something that one of the chaperones said during our class on the topic of love. To give a little bit of background, we were basically discussing different types of love, one of them being sacrificial. We defined that in a nutshell as love that is one-sided, in which one individual wholly sacrifices his/herself for another while the person receiving has only to receive. We also talked about whether this was the type of love Christ demonstrated on the cross.
Ok, so with that background, here's the scenario I posed just to see if I was understanding right. Basically, I gave a hypothetical situation in which there was an individual that was constantly being made fun of my a friend, and yet they choose not to say anything to them and just love them anyway because they feel like that is what they are supposed to do. It 's a little different, but it was concluded that it was similar to what we were talking about, and one of the chaperones said this:
God gives us all gifts other than just to serve another individual. A complete denial of yourself is not for the will of God but for another person. If you stop standing up for yourself, you fade into not being anything.
Dudes… this wrecked me. All my life I've been the person in the scenario I gave, and I legitimately thought that I was demonstrating the type of love that Christ would. Yet I've realized that this simply isn't the case. With Christ, love and justice tun hand in hand. If we do not say anything to our brothers and sisters about their actions, then we are enabling disablement. In other words, we enable their behavior to continue, which ends up hurting that individual. Not only that, but but the individual that is being ridiculed begins to fade away.
I am terrified of confrontation, especially with those that I love. Yet I am realizing that it truly is the best option for both parties involved. It is true, yes, that sacrificial love is emphasized by Christ. "Greater love had no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." Yet we must be focused on a love that delivers. One that helps bring our brothers and sisters out of what binds them and invite them into loving community.
Blessings from Belize!
-Courtney
