Loving with a healthy heart.

It takes patience.

Jun 19, 2025

Love Is Patient

It was the sunshine that woke me up this morning, but my darkness from within kept me in bed. Thoughts of relationships from years past started to corrupt my thinking. Four years ago I was filled with darkness. My heart was cold and didn’t know how to love.

Love is a term I threw around loosely, especially during times of intoxication. Now, with a sober heart, I find it’s taking much longer than anticipated to develop the healthy heart needed to offer a healthy love.

Love Is Kind

I was filled with a conditional type of love and offered it freely. It’s as if it had strings attached. It wasn’t the healthy kind of love that relationships should be made of. It was superficial, surface level and not deep.

My love wasn’t always kind during times when my alcoholic behavior was present. Today my heart aches for the kindness of pure love.

Love Does Not Envy

The last four years, steadily, my heart has been growing. The love that has entered my life was there all along, it just needed nurtured. The thirst I once had for alcohol found a substitute. God.

I was always envious of the woman who lived a life free from drama and kept herself out of trouble. She is the woman filled with the Spirit. When I found myself the center of the drama that is when my heart said, “It’s time for a change.”

Love Is Not Boastful

I offer my love freely to my daughters, my family (immediate and recovery families), my friends, and strive to extend it to all of humanity.

However, I’m not there yet. God’s love is what I hope for. It’s what I wish for others. It’s the foundation of the love I share with my husband. God has been working in our lives and I have noticed the fruit of His labor.

Love Is Not Arrogant

Feeling blessed doesn’t mean I feel better than anyone else. I don’t want others to think that my opinions are the benchmark for a healthy heart. It’s just where I am at in my recovery.

Because of God’s love I am at a good place and our life is rich. This post isn’t about being proud but healing. This morning my feelings poured out and this post was born.

Love Is Not Rude

Sometimes, however, it’s hard to love someone. It’s hard to offer love to someone who you feel wronged by. They don’t seem to have a healthy heart themselves to offer love.

I am learning that when I hold onto God’s love and not freely give it, it creates heartache. I don’t want to be that person.

Love Is Not Self Seeking

Loving from an unhealthy heart produces a throbbing mental anguish. It eats away the goodness that slowly develops over time by building a relationship with God. If left untreated the heart will fracture once again.

Before I offer my love I want to make sure it’s coming from a healthy heart. I’m not writing this post for accolades but for my own personal healing.

Love Is Not Irritable

It’s hard to extend love to others when you are not feeling it yourself. A happy heart is a healed heart. Healed hearts don’t cause a rift in relationships but unites with love.

This morning my heart was irritated because it’s not at a good place. I don’t know when it will be healed but I want to extend my love from a healthy heart, not a broken heart.

And Love Does Not Keep a Record of Wrongs

The bitterness I woke up with I need to deal with. I don’t blame anyone for my past. It’s my past. I can not heal another person’s broken heart but strive to mend mine.

Waking up this morning I realized that I still had work that needs done. Listening to this meditation on Unconditional Love motivated me to write this post.

What love looks like in my life…

This past weekend I celebrated the marriage of a friend’s daughter. I have known the bride since birth and honored to be part of the celebration. It wasn’t just about celebrating the union of a lovely couple but for me friendship.

Healthy relationships are a product of a healthy heart.

Healthy relationships are made with God’s love. God gifted me the love of my friends and family. Over the last four years our love has been strengthened by God.

God’s love is what I want to offer to all my friends who are getting married. His love is so powerful. It’s not for us to keep but to extend to others.

Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not arrogant, is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not irritable, and does not keep a record of wrongs.

1 Corinthians 13:4-5 CSB