The idea for this article came to me while I was sitting in church on Sunday morning. Well, came to me is a relative term. Today, our pastor gave a sermon on how we should love even those who do not love us, and I wanted to give my own thoughts on the topic. Sorry for stealing your thunder, Pastor Mike.

We’ve all grown up hearing about how we should be nice to everyone, whether it’s a friend or a family member or even a stranger on the street. We’re told to treat others how we would like to be treated, and I don’t know about you but in my head that always translated to “be nice to the people who are nice to you.”

It’s really easy to fight fire with fire. It is extremely, extremely easy to spread hatred to people who have treated you with hatred. I mean, if someone is mean to you, are you really going to be nice to them? We hear all the time how we should “kill them with kindness” but that’s way easier said than done.

It’s also really easy to only give love to the people whom we want to, like our friends and family. Even if someone is kind of annoying and does things we don’t like, we don't want to show them kindness. It's so easy to let our annoyance show and treat them with a bad temper.

There are some people in my life who have completely rubbed me the wrong way, whether it's because they've treated me with hatred or because they just annoy me. I try my best to treat everyone with the same civility, even though I know I miss the mark a lot. It reminds me of something my old student council teacher used to tell me. Even if I don't like someone, they'll never know, because I’ll still treat them with the respect that they deserve.

I was sitting in church today, listening to this sermon, and it really hit something inside of me (hence why I’m writing this article). I need to start treating everyone with love, even if they haven't treated me with love. It'll be hard, I know it will, but I’m challenging myself. I’m challenging anyone who reads this as well.

Love is the only thing that can turn this world around. Everyone deserves love in their lives.