Love, Love Always.

Dear Reader,
I have started to see the battle going on that we call "spiritual warfare". I am fearful when speaking of this because it is spoken of so loosely in the church today. When I hear "the enemy" doing this/that before so many things, my natural response is to question the validity of that. How does one know the works of the Spirit, how can one say what God or Satan is doing when it is so beyond comprehension? To me it seems impossible to grasp the spiritual realm. I feel like I see it like I would see the wind, only seeing it's effects to know it's really there. Yesterday I may as well have seen the wind blow over a tree it was so clear to me.
I had a huge miscommunication with my mom and so many hurtful things were said. This year it feels as if I have shed more tears than in my entire lifetime. As I listened to these hurtful words and thought these terribly discouraging things about my family, how no one can seem to understand how to love each other, one thing became so clear. It was as if my Father was saying, "This is not My love for you. It would never be this way with you and I." Then my other family came to mind, the one made up of the saints. It held comfort to know that God has provided with me wonderful relationships that make up a body and a family more so than my earthly family can.
There are these times when the world seems so hopeless and it causes me to wonder what God sees in us. In that house yesterday I felt nothing but the weight of how hopeless the world can be. They simply do not understand love. Today as I mulled over the things that were said to me it felt like Satan telling me to give up all of this "love" business. The words of my brother saying "stop dreaming" of my mom saying "you're just nieve, you can't change people" the words of friends saying "you're trying too hard". It was the same way with my dad. Maybe people don't change and I don't want to fool myself into thinking I can change them, but I can't give up on them. Maybe I'll be the fool for it, but I will not give up on any of them.
Let me show you what gives me the hope to say that. Firstly, a man named Tyler. No matter how I had been hurt by him, I kept praying for him and hoping to make things right and by grace God has completely restored this relationship, if not, made it something even better than it was before. Secondly, it doesn't hurt to never give up. What I mean is that if I spend my life trying to love people as best as I can and trying as hard as I can to speak up for love and innate the "hard things" that everyone else avoids, I haven't wasted my breath have I?
Let me repeat my ideal once again that I hardly ever speak of things as being "the enemy tempting me" or "Satan hindering me" simply because I don't always think such is the case. In Christ I am victorious over the simple tempter, but his temptations are quite tricky. Today, my eyes have barely spared me from soreness and tears because of this issue (of the state of humanity, my family, and myself), but how simple are my answers when I find them. I have a faithful Father, and no one will keep me from pouring out love, even if it offends them that I would expect something more than hatred and desire relationship with those "terrible people". Truthfully that is what it all boils down to.

Reader, I do apologize if this letter to you is in any way confusing or not specific enough. My prayer is that, vague as it is, you will be encouraged and that the power of the Spirit, who is as mysterious as the wind, may communicate hope to you.
We are a strong and relentless people, but we are hated, and for that I lament. But over this I rejoice and am comforted:
Jeremiah 31

Chelsy.