Love is not proud

Love is not proud.

Love is not about me. It is not about what I have done. It is not about what I am doing for the other person. It’s about the loved one, about what he wants, and about how she is being loved.

We cannot feel proud of something we have done for the loved ones because it’s not about looking at what we’ve done from our perspectives but looking at it from our partner’s. We can volunteer work and effort for our loved ones’ convenience such as doing the dishes, getting kids ready in the morning while your partner gets more sleep, or planning for a perfect birthday party. Yet we need to remember that our Lord looks at the heart and might call out our seemingly biggest sacrifice is actually to fulfill our own needs.

We need to look at our intentions inside and make sure it is love. Through our actions, have the children felt loved, the partners’ hearts melted, and the parents felt appreciated? If we feel proud that we have done something for them, we need to rethink how our actions have been received by them without being distracted with own thoughts and perspectives.

We parents do so much for our children. We care for them, feed them, clothe them, provide shelter for them, and give them what they need and want. This makes it too easy for parents to think everything we do is love. If you look closely, however, that is not true. We don’t think every time about what we say, what we do, what we allow or not allow our kids. Even though we often overlook our true intentions, we so easily assume it is love. Undeniably, parents do a lot for children but we should always remember that does not always mean we love.

To love that is not proud, we parents need to be able to see it from our children’s perspectives. With respect their own individuality, we need to love them the way they need to be loved. Obviously this is so much easier said than done. Nonetheless, it is worth loving our children and knowing that our children are truly loved by us.

In practice, the first step we take is to learn more about them. Kids grow and develop every single day. This makes this journey fun and adventurous that there is always something more to learn about our ever so changing children. We study them, and understand the way they need to be loved. We love them to not feel proud but to be grateful that they are here with us.