If you felt a sudden jolt, don't be alarmed; that was just my paradigm shifting.

Firstly, I've been meaning to write for over a month now but between working and being tired from work and suffering from a very unusual case of writer's block, I haven't been able to come up with anything worthwhile. However, my head is in a much better place than it was when I wrote my last post. I'm just going to call that a moment of panic brought on by my having too much time to think. I'm back at work now, getting out of the house and spending time around people every day, and it's all good. Gotta work harder at not letting the worrying fester.

Now, on with the show.

I've been thinking a lot about love the past couple of weeks. Not of the romantic variety, or in the “I don't always like you but we're related so I have no choice but to care about you” sort of way, but the kind of love God calls us to show one another. I've always tried to be a nice person in that I aim to be polite and respectful and treat others as I'd like to be treated, but I don't think simply being “nice” equates to showing love.

My mom and sister and I have been visiting a church for the past few months. They recently had a revival, which is what spurred me to write this. The topic of discussion one evening was found in 1 Peter 4.

⁷The end of all things is near. Therefore be alert and sober of mind so that you may pray. ⁸Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. ⁹Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. ¹⁰Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God's grace in its various forms. ¹¹If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen.

The speaker mainly concentrated on verses 9 and 10, expanding on hospitality and service. He noted how everyone seems to be caught up in their own little world these days, too busy to care about fellowship and giving to those less fortunate. A good message, to be sure, and I did pause to think about what I have and haven't done and what I could do in the future, but that isn't what got to me. Though I was already familiar with the passage, I had never read it in the particular mindset I was in that night, so while the speaker carried on with something about a big bowl of tuna fish and dragging people home with you for lunch after church, my brain was stuck on verse 8.

Love each other deeply.

That phrase was still going around in my mind the next evening when he spoke on 1 John 4:10-12.

¹⁰This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. ¹¹Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. ¹²No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

There it is again. Love one another.

“One another” does not mean your family and your friends, or even all the people you know. Those two little words encompass every single person on earth. That's a whole lot of love we ought to be giving out. And this is the bit that really got me: How can I show love to someone if I can't even approach them and say hello? How can I love anyone if I hide from everyone?

In the past I have thought that, in sticking to myself, I was depriving myself of the opportunity to know others. It never occurred to me that I was denying others love. Now this new perspective is just further motivation to change my ways.