Love is inconvenient.
Love is getting up in the middle of the night to clean up a child who has thrown up.
Love is driving out of your way to be with a friend for his birthday.
Love is spending money you’d been saving for something nice for yourself because someone else is in need.
Love is listening to mediocre middle school musicians because your neighbor is the kid playing the bassoon badly.
Love is no sleeping while you wait for your daughter to come home from her first date.
Love is letting someone else have the last piece of pie.
Love is driving to the store to buy your husband a decongestant when his head feels like it’s about to explode.
Love is waiting for your wife as she tries on another outfit, making you even later.
Love is giving your used car to the single mom whose transmission just went out.
Real love is inconvenient. It embraces interruptions, even if it groans a bit when they come. Because real love prefers the good of another over its own convenience.
Interruptions are the way love is called out from us. Intrusions and interferences are the ways love’s attention is grabbed.
Feelings follow far behind most of the time. At least, the warm feelings do. Our initial feelings are generally ones of annoyance and frustration. More has been asked for from us than we intended to give. Plans are ruined. Money is lost. Time winds out of control. Exertion is required. And when none of it is expected, it can take our emotions a while to catch up.
But real love gets busy. Because real love is revealed by its actions.