After reading through all of the messages, I caught myself thinking about this ... Christ’s words "love" your neighbor as yourself. Not "like" him.
A recent situation at work has me struggling with "loving" a co-worker who makes himself difficult to love. I can honestly say I do not like some of the things he has done and continues to do. I can also say that I have to concentrate and work at loving him because he makes it so hard. Love is hard work! Someone actually refered to me as a "saint" the other day because they watched and listened to an interaction I was having with him. I bristled at the word saint because at the time I was praying very hard to just be civil.Loving him is still my daily challenge.
I love my husband and children. I don’t always like what they do. To be very critically honest sometimes I don’t like them very much. Heck, sometimes I don’t even like myself very much. I know I still love when they hurt and I’d give anything to take on their hurt. "Love" is not the bubbles and the fizz that "like" is. Love is more the fresh clean glass of life sustaining water.