Teach me to love...

Last night I opened my Bible for the first time in what felt like years. I've been under such a dark cloud spiritually for so long that I felt like it was my first time reading the text. I wasn't sure where to begin. In fact, I was incredibly nervous to even get started. I had to laugh at myself a little... it was almost as though I thought I was going to be struck by lightening if I accidentally creased a page or misread a verse.

Silly Aly. That's not how God works.

I had decided to stick with my church's daily reading schedule to get myself going. However, instead of the limiting myself to the first chapter in Exodus as the schedule instructed, I got lost in the story of Moses and God's call on his life. I really don't know how much I read, I just know that when I was done, I couldn't believe the overwhelming hunger I felt for the Word. In fact, I felt like I was starving.

You know that feeling you get when you've been working hard at the gym and you just can't seem to eat enough? Yeah. That's how I felt. Physically and spiritually. My mind and body where not going to be content until I was full. So I started flipping through, looking for another passage of scripture in which to lose myself (I decided that I should save the rest of Exodus for next week in order to be in sync with the rest of the church body). This is when I came across a sticky note I had left for myself months ago (actually, to be honest, it was probably over a year ago). It read, "Memorize 1 Corinthians 13." So, I read 1 Corinthians 13.

Actually, I only read the first couple verses.

Instead of being struck by lightening, I was stabbed through the heart with a rusty, jagged blade.

"If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging symbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing." - 1 Corinthians 13:1-3

Yyyouch. I read these three verses over and over again, particularly verse three. How could I have missed this the millions of times I've read through this passage before? What hurt so bad? I am a hateful, selfish person. How often do I do things merely out of love, not expecting something in return? Never. Simple. I never do anything without first thinking how it's going to profit me... whether materialistic or spiritual, I always seek a gain.

Once I managed to read past those three verses, my heart broke at the rest of the chapter. "Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant..." I had but one thing racing through my mind as I read those words and it crushed me. I have forgotten how to love. How could I have allowed myself to fall so far from Christ that I forgot how to love? Worse, how can I be sure that I ever really knew how to love? I simply do not know.

The pain of a broken pride is relentless. To be honest, I think I would rather have been struck by lightening.