Girl with Grandmother, Calbuco, Chile
MADE TO LOVE
By Dana Ergenbright
What a gift it is to be unique. Of the billions of people on earth, and the billions who have lived before, no one else shares your exact combination of characteristics. The shape of your nose, the pattern of your fingerprints, the sound of your voice, the colors and tastes you like, the things that make you smile or cry—you are a masterpiece so complex that you cannot even fully understand yourself. Every other person is just as unique, just as complex, just as much a masterpiece.
Who could have designed this glorious rainbow of humanity? Who could have designed such infinite variety? Only God, the creator of the world and everything in it, who gives life and breath to all creatures, the depth of whose wisdom and knowledge no one can grasp, and whose ways are unsearchable. It is He who created the first man and woman, from whom He made every nation on the face of the earth.
Why has God done this? Because God’s nature is love, and love delights in giving. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit have eternally loved one another. And because love and communication are at the core of God’s being, we who are stamped with His glorious image are made for relationships of love and communication—with Him and with others.
But what is love? Love is action, a sacrificial giving of oneself to another, often in spite of emotions. Love does not live for itself or look inward; instead, it is oriented toward others and their needs. Love perseveres despite changing circumstances and even more changeable emotions. No relationship can endure or grow without it. God’s love enables us to properly love ourselves and others.