October 10
Love is not easily perceived by the person who is immersed in the quagmire of despair or depression. Hopelessness hangs like a fog around the mind and heart and spirit of the one who is overwhelmed with the challenges of life, and that one can neither see the acts of love extended to him nor feel the warmth of the love that is directed his way.
The caring acts of friends who extend the hand of help at the hour of need may be appreciated but the love within them is not perceived. The love of a child, though valued, does not satisfy the deep longing of the heart enveloped with pain. The fact is that when there is one area where love should be—but isn’t—that one area enshrouds the entirety of the life in emptiness.
Even God’s love seems to be a pipe dream—a vapor of hope that circles like smoke around an aching spirit and then vanishes away. It is an unalterable truth that “The Lord shows His true love every day…” but unless we allow ourselves to feel His love we will be unable to say with the psalmist, “…At night I have a song and I pray to my living God” (Psalm 42:8).
When the heartaches of life have seared the heart and it can’t feel the love or God or of man, it is then the depleted one must remind himself that feelings are deceptive but God is forever true. It is then the precious words of scripture must be appropriated—“These three things continue forever: faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is love,” I Corinthians 13:8.
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