LOVE OVER HATE?
Some of my favourite quotes from Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968), a man of peace, who was assassinated in Memphis Tennessee on April 4th, 1968.
‘Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.’
‘I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.’
Speaking from my own experience, the wrong type of love is as draining as the hatred you can feel for someone.
What I may have thought to be love, was a selfish kind of love. It was me being insecure, manipulative and domineering. A recipe for disaster.
People say love at first sight, that’s just it, the outside packaging is appealing that you do not bother to consider the ingredients. What about getting to know the specifications of a product.
Beauty is not just about the way you look on the outside, and I found out just how ugly I could be on the inside. It was my way or the highway.
An extract from 1 Corinthians 13 v 1–8 a great explanation of love.
Love is patient. Love is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others and is not self-seeking. It does not keep a record of wrongs and is not easily angered. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices in the truth.
It always protects, trusts, hopes, and always perseveres. It never fails.
This is the perfect description that I can find for true love, and I definitely do not pretend that I hold those qualities when it comes to committed relationships.
I am truly fortunate to have experienced this purity of love from my Father, even when he was not long for this world, he was more concerned about his family. He was love.
And now these three remain. Faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is LOVE.
A popular term I have heard people use is a Love, hate relationship, I guess that must be where the balance is.
There must be a balance between love and hate, you are not going to love everything about a person unless he or she is your puppet master.
Hate is an immensely powerful, strong word. I use it carefully. I don’t hate anybody, but I hate the bad that people do to others.
I hate the spirit of those who feel that they are superior to other human beings, because they do not tick the boxes of societies norm.
I hate the spirit of injustice who believe that they are above God and can condemn a person for life because of their sexual orientation, skin colour, disability or because they just do not agree.
As the years have flown by, I realise that I do not really hate a person, only the dreadful things they do. Just like you cannot hate a country, only the problems that make it a bad place.
A person’s character defines who they really are. It also reminds you of everything that you value. If a person has more bad than good qualities, then what is there to like about them. Why should anyone drop their standards to accommodate anyone else.
For me to retain my balance I have to use the word dislike, although sometimes, I am angry enough to use the word loathe.
In everything there must be a balance love and hate are both powerful words when used in the right context.
Natalie Bleau
The Scripture of Balance
