Measure of love

William Blake, a British poet, painter, engraver and a mystic had this to say of love;

'Love seeketh not itself to please,
'Nor for itself hath any care,
'But for another gives its ease,
'And builds a Heaven in Hell's despair.'

The ability to love naturally without expecting back is a virtue that only few posses. My mother always taught me the importance of love, love not only towards my family but even to those whom I might think do not deserve it. The biblical aspect of loving your neighbor as you love yourself, neighbor here not referring to the person living nor sited next to you but rather every human being you come in contact with. (P.s: it is not a request but rather a command).

Sometimes I think if I were to attend a practical session class on loving your siblings, I would without any shadow of doubt top the class, but is that enough? To only love those whose blood flow in my veins, it is worth it, but enough…no. I have in a few occasions told my friends of how much I love my brothers that if at some point, and God forbid, their lives were at stake, then I would rather have mine on the line than theirs. These are the people with whom your life revolves around and sometimes it feels like life is not worth living without them. You can actually face the grave for them.

As unbelievable as it seems, this is actually what happened to me. He always said that he loved me but it was not mutual, that he wanted to be in a relationship with me but as far as I was concerned, you can only be in a relationship if both of you are reading from the same script, if you have mutual feelings but here is this guy whom I feel completely nothing for. Funny enough, he made the promises that many of his species make, that he would love me forever, that I will never regret if I decide to choose him over someone else and that he would give me a straight ticket to heaven, and this as he said, was not the’ heaven on earth’ but the real thing. Of course all these fell on very attentive ears but the heart seemed like one made of stone rather than blood. Emotionless! Someone might say, I think it was more of blindness plus stubbornness, but he did not give up. I dare even say I gave him enough gun shots but his spirit was never shattered. N.B, (FOR THOSE WHO HAVE NO CLUE, GUN SHOTS ARE THOSE WORDS YOU NEVER WANT TO HEAR WHEN ASKING SOMEONE OUT, e.g I have always considered you as my big brother/sister…he he, or just a plain NO), he kept coming back for more and when he finally realized that there was no breakthrough, he gave his life up for me. Many at times he’d said that I couldn’t live without him and at some point he even said he can die for me but of course to me that was crap. What do you mean I can’t live without you, who do you think you are? And so to him the only way to save me from myself was to die for me, it is unbelievable and the day I learnt of this, I can’t even describe what I felt. It was a moment of pain, it stung deep through my flesh to the bone marrow, and my heart was crushed into pieces, my soul groaned as I remembered how heartless I had been towards a man who had truly loved me. For a day I could not live with myself but it was too late to turn back time. He gave up his life that I might live, he died for me. By the way, this isn’t fiction but a true story. Now this is the weirdest part of this story, although this man died that I may live, I have come to learn that he does not force me to live my life the way he expects me to. He has given me the liberty to choose whether to live for him or not and I can proudly declare that I have deliberately chosen to live for Him because this is love. This man is my savior and I bet you know him, He is the Christ!