938) It’s interesting to teach kids who are in their early teens. The love bug comes into my classroom and I see the kids act in ways that are amusing. I’ll see looks exchanged across the room. I’ll see terrible attempts to pass notes, which, to their horror, I often intercept. I sense a giddiness when those warm feelings of love wash over them. These things are very serious to them and I smile, hoping they can enjoy these innocent feelings before the world they live in taints and often squelches them.

In John 13:34, the evening before Jesus is crucified, he tells his disciples to love one another. Of course, we adults know that the love Jesus refers to is a verb, not a feeling. Doesn’t love involve feelings, you may ask? Yes, but perhaps we have not considered that in the act of this doing, loving can bring all kinds of emotions–sometimes endearment, sometimes frustration, and sometimes, we let the poison of resentment seep into our love.

Jesus tells us to love one another. He knew it wasn’t an easy command to keep. After all, he died an excruciating death because of it.