This weekend I attended a family wedding. Weddings are traditionally thought of as an expression of love. This love is not limited to the couple be married, but includes those attending the wedding as well. The wedding this weekend was not lacking in love. To see the number of people in attendance, some who traveled hundreds of miles, to support this couple was amazing. We had all come to from different places, different backgrounds and had individually grown to known the couple. By some chance, we had found ourselves gathered in a room to celebrate that couple. It seems not by chance but by fate that we all ended up in the same place, at the same time.
The pastor mentioned this during the ceremony. He spoke of the love between the couple, but also the love we must have felt for the couple to be with them on their special day. Love was not limited to just the couple, but instead surrounded us all on that day. He also mentioned in a world where we seem to be lacking in love for one another these past few days, we need to reflect on moments like this. Love, is one of the purest emotions. God so loved us all, that he gave his Son to die on the cross for us. When we consider that, how can we deny the power of love?
The world today is not filled with love, it is filled with hate. For whatever reasons, we have decided to divide ourselves along lines, lines of belief, and lines of where we come from and along lines of the color of our skin. Do these things really make us so different in the end? Do we not all bleed the same? It seems as though we have forgotten this, that no matter how different another person may seem, at the end of the day, they are just that, another person.
I took a moment to look around the room, filled with my family and many people I did not know. But we were all there for one reason. To see to people in love unite themselves for a lifetime. All it takes is for us to look past ourselves, and look for the love. I felt so much love not just on Saturday during the wedding and the reception, but for the rest of the weekend that I was able to spend with my family. I wish that everyone is able to experience that love, because I believe that it would surely change a person for the better.
If we are able to gather in a room full of family, friends and strangers in the celebration of love, why cannot we do that on a daily basis? At weddings we lift our glasses to toast the newlyweds, for their love and a lime time of happiness. Can we not do that with the strangers we meet in the line at the coffee shop? Can we not toast that their day goes well, that they too find happiness? We need to continue to remind the world, even when it seems lost in the depths of hate, that love is stronger. Hate will not drive out hate, only love will.
Love is the answer.
So I ask of you, in the coming days and weeks, look for the love around you. Look for the love when all you can see is hate. Love is what will save us all in the end.
