Intentional Love

As I reflected on the many tributes and sentiments over the tragic death of Kobe Bryant, his daughter, and the others who lost their lives, they left here too young and too soon. It made me think about how precious life is and how suddenly everything could change for us as individuals or collectively. The last time I remember experiencing this type of impact was on September 11, 2001, when the World Trade Center was hit.

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Our entire nation was shaken. It was as if everything was frozen in a moment of time. There was such a sense of vulnerability and mortality in the air. People clung to one another. They flocked to church in droves. But once the intensity of the situation diminished, the pews began to be empty again. Life resumed—but to a new normal. This past NBA All-Star Weekend felt the same way. It felt like the culmination of the tributes to Kobe Bryant, his daughter, and the others were the end.  Life would go on; but what would the new normal be for many?

Tragedy and hardship has a way of putting things in perspective. In most cases, these things happen instantaneously, not providing any time for preparation. You find yourself there, and your world is turned upside down. It forces you to remember how fragile life really is. It tightens the reigns on your tendency to take people and things for granted, and hopefully, you come away looking at life through a different set of lenses… the lenses of intentionality.

I’m not a sports fan so I don’t know much about Kobe Bryant, his career, or his family. I’m probably the only person on the planet that isn’t familiar with him and his basketball career. The one thing that stuck to me more than anything else was Kobe’s relationship with his daughter.

In all of the media footage that I’ve seen of them, it seemed as though they were living and enjoying their lives together. Sure they had plenty of money, which certainly helps, but there seemed to be more. The eyes don’t lie, and there appeared to be a genuine bond between them as father and daughter, which transcended all of his career accomplishments. This may not sell papers or media coverage; but through their relationship, we’ve been presented with an opportunity to intentionally focus on our own personal relationships with those we love. Unless I missed it, in all of the media coverage, we weren’t encouraged to intentionally love our families and friends. I saw a few social media posts about “hugging your kids,” but not much else.  Like I said, life will go on, but what will we take away from this that will help shape a new normal for us as individuals…as a nation?

It’s interesting how tragedy can strike us as a nation, and we are temporarily stunned. Then we eventually go back to our daily routines, seemingly not impacted by it at all. Some call it resilience, and it’s true…we can’t live in fear. We must keep going. The fallacy is when we fail to allow what happened to be a reminder to us that tomorrow is not promised to anyone, and that we need to be more intentional.

Tragedy is the wake-up call to shake us from our places of complacency that deceive us into believing that we still have time… and we don’t. The reality is that our lives are but a vapor. We only have a short amount of time to make a difference while we are here. We have to be intentional in everything that we do, which includes the development of our relationships with others, especially our families. There is so much divisiveness in our world today that unless we are intentional, divisiveness will become our new normal.

We are still early in the year, and most of us are still intentional about fulfilling our purpose and calling, and reaching our destinies. Yes, we must be intentional about the time we invest in these things, but they can’t be our sole priority. We must become just as intentional about our relationships with those we love and care about. We may not realize it, but we can waste so much time holding on to things that don’t really even matter.

• We waste time when we allow our own selfishness to hinder our relationships with others.
• We waste time when our need to be right stops us from letting go of petty disagreements.
• We waste time when we stop speaking to someone because of a misunderstanding instead of straightening it out.
• We waste time when we uphold legacies of family secrets because no one wants to open the closets filled with family skeletons.

There are entire families…generations…that don’t get along because of something that happened so long ago that no one really even remembers what happened. We waste time when we bury unforgiveness in our hearts, making way for deep root systems of bitterness to grow throughout our bodies, producing the fruit of arthritis, rheumatism, and other physical ailments.  

It is the times of tragedy that give us the opportunity to be intentional. It’s an opportunity to be intentional about searching our hearts to see if we have been wasting time, holding someone hostage for some wrong they’ve committed against us. Do you realize that it takes more effort for you to be angry with someone than it does to release them? You will never be able to live intentionally if you allow things in your heart against others to hinder you. No matter how successful you are, you will always be a time-waster when you let something or what someone did to you stop you from releasing them.

As we continue throughout this year focused on our purpose and making a mark on the world, let us remember to be just as intentional about dealing with any unresolved issues that may be standing between us and someone else. Let us be intentional about loving those who are important to us. Let’s be intentional about not allowing tragedy to creep up on us before it’s too late…

 

Denise Carlie

 

Denise Carlie is a Native Chicagoan and a graduate of Living Word Christian Center School of Ministry and Robert Morris College with a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration. She has been married for thirty-eight years and has two children and four grandchildren. Denise is a Seer, Intercessor, and Teacher with a ministerial license through the Faith Ministries Alliance. It is her desire to be remembered as “A woman after God’s own Heart.”

DENISE CARLIE

 

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