I asked this question on my Facebook page the other day.
And the answers came back overwhelmingly, "No."
Some wise souls asked:
"What is it that you are loving?"
"Can it be unhealthy?"
Good questions.
In the last face-to-face conversation Andrea and I ever had, she said,
"You just love too much, Mom.."
She said it with a soft smile on her lips,
and grace in her eyes.
I felt loved by her, and free from anything I had done wrong as a mom. And if you are a mom, you know, we mess up a bit. We do so many things right, and in our imperfect human-ness, we also do many things wrong.
So, I contemplated.
Can you love people too much?
I Corinthians 13:13 says, "Three things will last forever-faith, hope, and love- and the greatest of these is love."
So, straight from God's mouth....the greatest of these is love. I'm commanded to love. If I fail at all else, but I love too much....I'm doing what is asked of me.
Here's the thing though.
I am human.
I love with imperfection.
I love too much sometimes.
I cross boundaries of both those I love, and myself, because I love too much.
As someone pointed out on my Facebook post, people pleasers can have a problem with this.
Yes. People pleaser Carrie, here I am.
"You just love too much, Mom."
I have to be reigned in.
I have to set my own boundaries.
I have to learn to respect other's boundaries.
1 John 4:17 says, "And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect."
It grows more perfect.
It isn't perfect yet.
I'm learning.
I'm changing.
As I wade through the third year of grief, learning what my boundaries are has been a huge lesson.
I am learning what I can, and cannot do.
I am learning my time-constraints on socializing.
And some of these boundaries do not fit others' wants. But those who love well, see and respect that. And take what I have to give. That is being loved well.
But, I'm learning to love well.
And loving well- sets boundaries.
Loving healthy-keeps boundaries.
Can one love people too much?
I don't think so.
Thank you Andrea, for this gift of freedom.
Thank you for loving me so well....
Many years ago, I read the prophet Kahlil Gibran's quote that joy and sorrow fill the same cup. The deeper our cup of grief/sorrow, the deeper our cup of joy. You can't love too much, but the more you love, the more it can hurt, as you need no one to tell you. But that deep love gave you much deep joy while you had Andrea here. And it still gets filled up (you have a granddaughter, right?) That's a joy cup filler right there. Thanks for writing.
Can we love too much?
I agree with you, Carrie. We cannot love too much… as long as the love we are loving with is God’s Love… Agape Love … Perfect Love… the love that understands what it means when we sing the second verse of the children’s song, “Jesus Love’s Me”. We adults should to sing to.remind us that
“God’s love (Jesus) loves me when I’m good, When I do the things I should.
God’s love (Jesus) loves me when I’m bad, though it makes Him very sad.”
God’s love: I do something very bad, and you, my daughter, are very sad, but you still love me with a love bigger than your pain.
God’s love: I stretch the…