Blue Like Jazz quotes

"I was guilty of using love like money, withholding it to get somebody to be who I wanted them to be.....
I repented. I told God I was sorry. I replaced economic metaphor , in my mind, with something different, a free gift metaphor or a magnet metaphor. That is, instead of withholding love to change somebody, I poured it on lavishly. I hoped that love would work like a magnet, pulling people away from the mire and toward healing. I knew this was the way God loved me. God had never withheld love to teach me a lesson." p219, 220.

Something worth applying. The author talks about this sort of thinking freeing him up to love unconditionally - people don't HAVE to be good before we give love. They can be bad, and we are free to love them and be interested in them as though they are the most important person in the world - because to God they are. And hopefully our love will have a good effect on them.

"I was in love once. I think love is a bit of heaven......When I was in love there was somebody in the world who was more important than me, and that, given all that happened at the fall of man, is a miracle, like something God forgot to curse." p151.

You know, I never thought of it like that.