This necklace from Elsie serves as a reminder to choose love.

Love is a choice.

There are days when the choice to love is much more difficult (and a whole lot less appealing) than the choice to be annoyed or turn my back or just give up. Sometimes the choice to love is the harder choice.

Paul inked these sacred words in Romans 12. The truth of the matter is genuine love is hard. It’s a breathe in and breathe out choice over and over and over. But the rest of the truth is I am never, not-ever, sorry when I choose love.

I think Paul was talking about celebration when he wrote, Cling fast to what is good. It’s about holding tight to the good — finding the celebration in the thick of the trouble — and clinging fast, with white knuckles.

It’s celebration that saves.

Chances are, right now there’s a relationship in your life that’s hard. We’re human and it’s inevitable that there is a person (maybe a spouse or maybe a daughter or maybe a friend or maybe someone else) who is hard to love. There’s someone like that right now in my life. And tomorrow there will be someone and next week there will be someone. We are called to love. If I let love be genuine, then I find the celebrations…