21 December 2015

WHAT IF WE: LOVE

“…so, did you fantasize? Did you see it like it was yours?”

“Are you serious? Did I do what? hahahaha” I ask with this look on my face as if that can never happen in real life.

“Yes I am, did you?”

A few days ago I was attending a wedding where two of my childhood friends were getting married. And this festive season all around us; well one can say love was in the air. So, it is evening…and this good friend calls to ask how my day was. There I

am blurting about how the clothes, shoes, bridesmaids, cake, how the kids I was carrying were adorable and how we were singing along to some songs with the matron of honor (well, it’s been long since I attended or participated in a wedding so this was really refreshing). I finish my side of the story and ask about his, which he shares quite interestingly since he was participating in another. Towards the end of the conversation he asks if I fantasized. I remember laughing and laughing, almost uncontrollably in the section of the conversation up there. Like, I know it’s the festive season, people are with loved ones, people are cuddling and holding hands all over, “I love you” messages and actions are all around and it’s the time of the year when you are reminded of how being away from a loved one can be devastating. Oh, and visiting that grandmother who keeps reminding you that she has two school buses ready and waiting for me to tell her to get people ready, makes it all worse. So, maybe I did, maybe I did not hahaha.

Okay, but that is not my point. Thing is, during this festive season, there is so much love around. Like real and genuine love. Husbands spending time with families, wives spending time at home and not work, kids away from school and playing around the house, nobody is at work (except those who work in very sensitive areas like doctors, bankers, supermarket attendants, chefs…you know, those who we would die without), and comfortingly…families and homes are filled with laughter and joy. And food. And Sunshine. And conversations. Oh how I wish everyday was Christmas.

So all along I have been asking myself; why does this have to happen on Christmas and/or New Year’s or during holidays? If there is a time I see people genuinely show love is during festive seasons. It reminds me of a conversation I had with my mentor a few years ago, and he was saying how he pities our generation, because we all want to be loved but don’t want to love. Like so many of us want something that lasts forever but are not willing to do what is takes? I mean…we all have been in love once and we all let go at some point, we have all gotten heart broken…but really, what if we all loved? Like genuinely loved? The kind of loving that makes us look forward to the future? That kind of love that makes us say “I know he/she is not perfect but there is not another being under the heavens that I would rather be with”. The kind of love that makes us say “no matter what is happening, I will keep this love pure and keep working on it”.

source: www.pixlabay.com

I know every day cannot be Christmas…but what if we faithfully loved? In a generation where there is little or not much genuine love, in a generation that wants things that are already complete and people who are already established, in a generation that lives by the “let me fool around…when the time comes I will be serious” kind of attitude, in a generation that seemingly does not know how to love; what if we learnt how to love? What if we became students of love? The hard-working, appreciative, full of gratitude, kind, reliable and consistent love? And who better to learn from than Christ? What if we sat down with elder people who have experienced this kind of love and learn from them? What if we genuinely cared and loved the less fortunate, the elderly, and the orphans? Would we lose anything?

What if we did it for our families, relationships, companies, ourselves? What if we did it #ForMyCity and for humanity? What if we started today (and sustained it)? What if we did it #ForMyCity and for humanity? After all, love makes the world go round (refer to power puff girls’ song “love makes the world go round" lol).

Dear readers of Njeri Kareithi, this post marks the end of the “What if” series. You can read about the others here. The series was inspired by a theme by dubbed #ForMyCity led by Poetry Spot. (Follow the conversation here). Love was the last in the series because all the other attributes, when love is added, make a complete person (flaws and all). Not perfect, but complete. I urge us all (me included), to take up the challenge and join me as we strive to make these attributes part and parcel of who we are.

"So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love." 1^st cor 13:13 (ESV)