Love Is A Choice

Love is a feeling. Love is a choice. Love in both forms is found in foster care.

The emotional pull of love—as feet step over thresholds of doors and the heart waiting to greet screams, “You, stranger, belong & are beloved.” It overcomes & overwhelms in its immediacy & irrationality: “I don’t know you, but my heart loves you still.”

And when the feelings don’t fill, the choice is made still, in the every day & ever mundane choosing of love—
When little mouths scream, “I hate you,” and I choose love.
When workers accuse, then I choose love.
When parents defend & blame, still I choose love.
When promise makers become promise breakers, I choose love.
When small arms wriggle out of embrace, I choose love.
When I do right and am repaid wrong, I choose love.
When thanks deserved never comes, I choose love.

Because love, above feeling, is choice.

I love. As one who is loved—with a love from the Father that is, by Him, deliberately chosen & deeply felt—I love.