Considering another before yourself, so all sides are covered imagine this? Being in relationships that were sturdy and safe. Involving people in your life that considered you in the same way that they considered themselves –and were honest in moments that they didn’t. Imagine that?
In recent conversations with friends, the topic of consideration has occurred time after time. And it seems as though our generation is sometimes lacking in the department of putting another’s needs before their own. Allowing another’s best interest to be the priority rather than their own. Time after time again, it appears as if the tales of he/she did this, he/she made me feel like this, or I’ve been going through x,y,z, has been the topic of conversation and the pulse behind a weary justification for inappropriate handling.
The truth is this, if you love someone –I mean truly love someone then you will do right by them.
Right by them, not meaning you’re never in the wrong nor that everything is perfect but that all is done with consideration. For the times you fail your partner (whether a friend or significant other) how will you respond, and what does the healing process consist of?
A few attributes of love: “Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustices but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance” -1 Corinthians 13:4-8 (NLT).
“Love is, what love does” meaning that patience, kindness, and the ultimate form of consideration derives from love. Preferring your brother over yourself is love. Propelling ones best interest and circumstance over your own? That’s love.
“Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other” –Romans 12:10 (NLT).
Honoring each other –honoring the vulnerabilities of another enough to never push your own agenda but rather bring relief, comfort, and experience and healing. Empathy rather than apathy and at times even sympathy. Real love is willing to nestle into the pain of another and suffer through it as if it is one’s own. It isn’t easy to consider another, to earnestly love another. Yet, imagine what could occur if you truly did?
If you covered the tracks of another and they did the same for you.