Agape Love

I feel not qualified to comment on this matter since i have never displayed nor expressed such kind of loving... agape love... how great and tremendous it is! when you would die for someone you love like Jesus did... but i have such witnessed it actualized in my own life..

i have this brother whom we consider the black sheep of the family. he did nothing but caused my parents so much pain since he was in elementary. he never took his studies seriously. he developed an addiction on computer games at a very young age that oftentimes he went home late at nights, sometimes he didn't go home for days. my parents have to stay awake all night just to search his whereabouts. he flunked his grades, he lied to my parents oftentimes and fooled them many times and in many ways just to get away with his addiction... i was there when all this happened... i witnessed how much my father cried infront him begging him to change... i was there when my mother weeped many times feeling betrayed by his promises of working on his studies well, but then he strays later on... the greatest betrayal he ever did to my mother was when he made her believed that he was still attending school and my mother kept on paying his school fees... and kept on supporting him financially.. only to find out later that he had dropped all his subjects ... my mother borrowed that money she used to pay for my brothers tuition fees in the high hopes that he was doing his studies seriously... but then again... he lied... he betrayed her... he betrayed them (my parents)... he betrayed us... again and again.. and again...

all the while that i was witnessing this turn of events.. i coulndn't help but develop some hatred towards my brother... i couldn't understand what kind of brain he has or what kind of heart he has for that matter... somehow i tried to reach out to him... and at some point he opened up to me... he talked and i listened to his side of the story... at some point he sounds so promising and i would then hope to see him changing... but then he would disappoint me... i've supported him financially too and it broke my heart many times when he fails my expectations... and it did not only happen for a few times.. it happened many times... there was this time that me and my father gave up on him altogether... tagging him as someone just like that... someone who's born to be a failure in his life... everyone in the family already believed that... everyone except my mother..

it came to a point that all of us would bully my mother for having still believed in my brother... all of us lost hope in him already... but she said 'NO! I still believe in my son.. one day he will change! I will not let him go.. I LOVE HIM.' i was dumbfounded with how my mother answered me... though i was mocking her in my mind.. in my heart i admired her for her tenacity and her faith in my brother... i felt sorry for her that time coz i really couldn't see my brother changing... but she never lose hope... she endured all the mockery, shame, and tribulations that she experienced with her quest of pursuing my brother.. and she persevered in hoping and loving him...

but then... a miracle happened.. prayers have been answered... like a budding flower blossoming was brother changing little by little for the better... and who could've thought that he would have even aimed at scoring the highest in his class? he is now in 2nd level in college... and he has shown such hard works and seriousness in his studies.. and his behavior changed tremendously as well from being irresponsible of his life to being ambitious in his life... from being proud to becoming humble in his ways... amazing!!! when i look back, i felt like crying... coz it was just an impossibility for me then.. but now, our hopes in him are being fulfilled slowly and gradually...

then i look at my mother... and i would say... how an amazing woman she is.. how much of a loving mother she is... how strong and faithful... because she had faith, she hoped and loved my brother... a miracle happened.. it didn't matter how long she waited now... what matters is, she was an instrument for one of God's miracles to happen... changing someone's heart....

when i contemplate on this i thought to myself... this is the kind of love God is searching out in us, his people... he is searching to find a quality love in our hearts that always trusts... always hopes... always perseveres... NO MATTER WHAT!

and we have to be patient in waiting... like farmers tending to their plants... he was to come day by day, nourishing it, taking care of it... with high hopes in his heart that it will bear fruit in the future... when he sows properly... good harvest will surely come... and God only requires of us to plant Love... only Love... and he only wants fruits of Love...

this is what it means to have an Agape Love! to NEVER GIVE UP on your beloved, even to the point of forgetting, denying or dying to yourself! though my mother did not went us far as dying for my brother physically... but i think she has died many times in her heart as his failures would crush all her emotions... though she experienced many harassment and discouragements around her... especially from us, the very persons who are close to her.. she never moved a muscle and never gave up my brother... and that served a great lesson for all us... especially to me... who tends to be so self-righteous and have a very short patience... building the kingdom of Love thus requires so much patience... especially at this era of our generation... many persons have lived in darkness and are broken... they don't change in a moment...that's why it requires a lot of waiting and patience! blessed are the hearts who chose martyrdom with loving people who are unlovable beyond imagination! blessed are the hearts who persevered in loving...

but beyond it all... i would like to stress out that though my mother was the instrument, she was not the reason why my brother changed... God worked in his heart... my mother was the farmer but God was the sun... without Him... the plant would have just withered in the soil.. it was my mother's prayers.. paired with her good works of loving my brother that has paved way to the fertility of my brother's heart...

may we all be instruments of Love! and may God grant us the grace to persevere in it!

In Search for Love

We all come to a point in our lives when we would be searching for Love.We'd then launch ourselves in search for Love in the wilderness of the world's realm of Love. Some are lucky, some are not. Some got their happy endings, some got theirs in a bitter end.

As we travel in this pathway of Love, we would experience a lot of its challenges, punishments and rewards. It's not all about the sweet things, but a combination of a variety of elements of Love's challenges.

But the greatest risk of this undertaking in search of Love, is that we are risking our hearts. We can't expect to find the real one at one glance.We are not even assured that we'd find him/her having spent, 3 months,3, years, 7 years, or longer with that person. We should check the reality first, before we go on with our fantasies. Are we really looking at the real diamond or are we looking at a counterfeit? Before we buy it with our emotions, dreams, time, energies, sacrifices and all... we have to know, is it the real thing? or just an illusion?

I had my own painful journey in search of Love before I have learned to go back to the very basics of knowing what Love is really all about. I had been tricked, with my own doing and ignorance. It's like all the while that I had launched myself into the field searching for a diamond, I did not bother knowing from an expert what a real diamond really looks like! So i had picked a lot of fake ones along the way. And each time I picked them, i wasted a lot of myself and my time. Then come this very beautiful stone that I found along my way. It glimmers as the sun rays would hit its surface. Then every time it shimmers I'm mesmerized! I finally said, this is it! I found the one! I found my special stone! But just when I'm so engrossed with my admiration over that special stone, I found out that there's a name engraved on it. It belonged to someone else. Ever so slowly and painstakingly, I have to put that special stone down and move on my way. But I couldn't help it each time I stay some distance from it, I would find myself going back to it again and again that It has become a cycle. A madness indeed. Coz I really don't know what a real diamond really is like, I have deceived my own self that I believed it's the only real diamond left around for me.What if I wouldn't find something like that anymore? Oh why does it have to belong to someone else???

Well...I have been sleeping too long over that disillusionment, for it was never a real diamond in the first place! But of course, I'm not really talking about diamonds. I'm talking about persons. There are those persons you'd think are the One for you, your Mrs. or Mr. Right for you, or your Soulmate. But you really have to be very careful in qualifying these persons, for it is such a terrible plight being in love with the fake ones. Though you could say that it would teach you lessons, yes indeed it's true. But with my experience I could say that it's wise to ask those who have been there before you even embark in the unknown grounds of loving the 'one'. But first and foremost, it is really important to know what LOVE is.

When I was weeping over that fake diamond, God has to comfort me through my friends that He has prepared the real one for me, and that I should not waste my tears for a cheap piece of a suspected diamond. I just have to trust in His loving goodness as my Almighty Father, for He would only give the best for me. He wouldn't allow anything to happen in my life, be it bad or good, that is not part of His great plan for me and my own growth as a person. Bad things may happen to me along the way, but it's in the choices that I make that could make or break me. In those situations, we may choose to use it for our greater learning, or let it stick us to the ground and face life forever as losers.

So then searching for real Love, requires one with consulting our Almighty Father first for He is the author of Love, and in His palms He has written the most beautiful Love story that is only for us. And we should ask guidance from those who have experiences already. It would really save us from many unecessary avoidable heartaches.