I believe love can overcome anything, even war, poverty, disease, or loneliness. I believe this because I recently read this book that talks a lot about love. I was really moved by it, though, when I started to apply it to my own life. So when I saw what it could do, I saw how true it was that love could overcome these things.
It was quite a while ago now, but there was once a time when my grandfather would have frequent heart attacks. He would always be in the hospital when I saw him. I remember that once we sneaked him some food he liked that the hospital wouldn’t allow him to have, just so that he could be happy in his misery of being trapped there and being very sick. Sometimes we just sat and talked with him to keep him company. He died a few weeks later in that hospital, but the point is, we loved him while he was in there, and that gave him happiness. It was love that let him die a happy man. If we weren’t there, he would have died all the same, but with no one to love him. Love cannot, obviously, prevent or delay death, but it does make the time that dying spend more worthwhile for living.
I also know first hand how love conquers poverty. My dad used to be a great employee for a computer company. He worked hard and earned his money well, but then he was laid off. I remember in those days we had to cut back on everything. Sometimes we couldn’t go places because he didn’t have enough money for gasoline. It lasted this way for about four years, and it was rough, but eventually things got better when he did finally find a job last year. The things is, though, that even though it was a really hard time for him, we pulled through. I did my best to love him during that time and tried to understand that we couldn’t have as much fun as we used to; I wouldn’t argue, and we made the best of it. Love helped us pull through those times. If I was never there for him, and never cared, I’ll bet he would feel like a horrbile father who isn’t good enough to get a job to support his family, or even good enough to get respect from his son. At least I know that’s how I would feel.
If you don’t believe love has much power, then I dare you to read An Irresistible Revolution, but that’s beside the point. Our world has so many problems. If only we could turn to love, we actually stand a chance of fighting them.