Love Sets Others Free

One of love's most challenging lessons is freedom.

Much of my life I thought love meant restraint. I couldn't do this if I loved you, you wouldn't do that if you loved me. Certainly there are times when love asks us to make choices. But love doesn't limit, it doesn't confine, as I once believed.

Love brings the gift of freedom. Love teaches us to allow the person we love to do as he or she chooses. It teaches us to encourage the people we love to freely make their own choices, to seek their own path, to learn their lessons their way in their own time.

Love that restrains isn't love. It's insecurity. We may tell others how we feel about something they do or don't do. We may make decisions as a reaction to others' choices. That is our right and our responsibility. But to restrain another in the name of love doesn't create love; it creates restraint.

Love means each person is free to follow his or her own heart, seek his or her own path. If we truly love, our choices will naturally and freely serve that love well. When we give freedom to another, we really give freedom to ourselves!



Melody Beattie