WHEN LOVE IS CHOSEN

i love dogs! but i can't force a dog to love me back. i love art. but i can't force art to love me back. everyone knows you can't force anyone to love you. you really can't "trick" anyone to love you either. loving someone is voluntary, a choice, and a risk someone will personally choose to take. it is easy to fall in love with someone who wasn't authentic in being who they presented themselves to be. but it still became the choice of the person choosing to love what they thought was real. it isn't a fault to fall in love, but it is a risk we all take when doing so. when i fell in love with my ex and she "let me go". i never blamed her for the love i gave her. she had no control over that process. yes...she was involved in the motions and direction it went: but not responsible for the walk i made in that direction. and when she ended the relationship...my love didn't stop. it just had no place to continue in action re: her. i learned to love her from a distance. i still pray for the best for her. i still wish the best for her. i still have fond memories of her. this is what i can control. if i had the power to "make her love me" i wouldn't do it. it would feel good for the moment, but love is best expressed and experience from the power of choice. God doesn't make us love Him. despite all the confusion surrounding Him and all the controversy that gets in the way of understanding God-to experience God comes best when we choose to do so with what little we know about God. we can fight all day about if God is a he or a she. if God is real or just a poetic suggestion. the fight then becomes just another tool to help to divide people and then it doesn't become about loving God at all. but loving our own ego. i love my family and my family loves me. but it's so cool when someone who isn't a family member-equally loves me with the same intensity of being in my family. or they treat me like i am family to them. some people are happy with the one or two people they love by choice. some people stop loving anybody after a bad relationship re: love. some have issues with God and love being in the same sentence. but there are some who welcome love from anybody and from any place. there are some that are open to cultural walls being broken down to experience love in a different way. there are some who want to know God and experience that love (which has nothing to do with being a part of a religion or attending a certain kind of church). choosing love doesn't solve world problems. choosing love does make life an easier place to live. being loved is even better.

FINAL THOUGHT: there are people we come across all over the place that need to be loved. they wear the face of "i'm ok" and they're not. we wear the same mask at times. but choosing to remove the mask just may give someone else the courage to remove their mask and thus begins a great opportunity to experience a loving journey. and even if you feel you have a ton of people in your life to love and be love by: take that blessing and go even further than you have before. be creative in your choice to love. find new people to love or express new ways to love old loves or experience new loves in the things you do (or use to do).

QUESTION: any new loves in your life lately (be it a person, thing or action)?