We'd probably all like to think of love as made of sweetness, sunshine and happiness. No matter what kind of love it is, whether it is romantic, family love or love between friends, we want this emotion to be easy and pleasant to feel, easy to give and to keep alight. We want to have few struggles when it comes to loving. We want to think that it comes easy. And the world wants us to think this too. The secular world is continually feeding us with movies, books, images, commercials, magazines and more that tell us that love is falling into a fluffy cloud or it's candy and hearts, or it's snuggling up under cozy blankets with our family, reading stories and feeling secure and in harmony and wonderful as we make priceless memories. Especially around certain holidays, these ideas are stuffed into the minds and hearts of people driving them to search for a love that doesn't exist. At Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, and Christmas, the TV, stores, media, all become full of clichés of what love is, of what it should look like and so many people want to believe that this kind of fluffy, effortless love is possible to achieve, that if they do things right, they will have a spouse, children, friends, and others who love them always and who make up their nearly perfect world. Now most of us probably know, that this kind of love does not exist, that the media and the secular world is lying to us when they try to portray love as easy and nearly effortless. But I think there are times in a life when it becomes especially clear what loving is hard work, that it is not all sunshine and roses that it is not always easy and natural. Loving others unconditionally and without ceasing is probably the hardest job any of us will ever have. The truth about what love is not, is both good and bad news, depending on how you look at it. People can be very hard to love. Let's be honest, though people are incredible, priceless gifts created by God they can be impossible, stubborn, gross, weak, annoying, mean, jugmental and selfish. None of us have a hard time loving people when they are at their best and strongest, when they are loving, selfless, sweet and fun. But it's really hard to love people when they are at their worst or weakest, when they have given into the sinful or pathetic nature that we all have in some degree and are behaving selfishly, stubbornly, and meanly or even when they are sick and helpless not by their own fault. When love meets sin or weakness this is where you find Jesus. To find the true definition of love, we have to look to Jesus, to the cross. Jesus showed us that loving is hard. Loving is painful. He loved those who killed him. No love is deeper, harder and more honest than that. Jesus never told us that love would be flowers, hearts and sunshine. That it would be easy most of the time or that we would always feel love for each other, and that if we don't feel love for others, we should just abandoned that relationship. That's what the world tells us about love. Why? Because that kind of idea of love, sells. Jesus' teachings on love are not easy or popular or attractive on the surface. At first glance His teachings on love look way too hard. Who wants to have to die for love, who wants to have to sacrifice their desires, comfort, wants and needs for the sake of love? Probably few people really want to. But people who are grounded deeply in Jesus know that this is the only kind of love that is real, lasting and meaningful. Sometimes people are very hard to love. But if we continue to pray to Jesus for guidance he will show us that this challenging, deep kind of love can bring truly beautiful results in the end.