“The greatest gift that one human being can give another is unconditional love. It’s the only thing, ultimately, that really matters.” (Joy Gardner)
I have a friend in recovery who I feel has truly been demonstrating what unconditional love looks like. For almost a year now, he’s repeatedly commuted two hours back and forth every other Saturday to visit someone he’s sponsoring in recovery that was incarcerated back in 2016. While that may not seem like a big deal at first glance, it’s important to note that he’s only allotted up to twenty-five minutes of time to connect with his sponsee once there and that can even turn into as little as eight minutes if others travel with him for the visit as well. But that seems to matter very little to my friend. What matters more is showing his sponsee that someone actually loves them unconditionally, which is also done in between his visits, by paying for his sponsee’s phone calls to him and by writing frequent letters to them too.
My friend has no hidden agenda for any of his actions here nor does he have any type of angle. It merely is something that comes from his heart and I have seen it plenty of times myself during the few years I’ve known him thus far. I was pretty impressed when I listened to him share with me recently a story where he had worked 12+ hours one day and was totally exhausted. As on that day, he chose to still stay up and launder his partner’s work clothes, seeing how they were already fast asleep and how their clothes had special cleaning instructions. And then even after that, he made sure to be awake a mere four hours later just to see his partner get to their new job on time.
To me, my friend’s actions speak to much of what I believe Christ attempted to convey two thousand years ago when he said the most important lesson was for us to love each other. I feel my friend’s actions are definitely doing that, as they seem to arise deep from within his heart and soul and emanate outward with nothing but a pure joy for serving others.
I really admire this friend for his daily actions that resonate on a frequency I feel would make God proud. I personally strive these days to live like this as well, but have struggled at times to fully make the shift, seeing how long I lived with either conditional love or no love at all. Sadly, there was a time where I wouldn’t have driven even 10 minutes away to visit a friend in jail, let alone stay up past the point of exhaustion to take care of anyone’s laundry. So, thank God for people like my recovery buddy, who day-to-day remind me of what unconditional love looks like. Because it’s people like him, who more than not, serve the world before themselves, and that keep the teachings of Christ alive and well in a world that ultimately needs it now more than ever.
I pray I may be filled with Christ’s unconditional love in all my thoughts, in all my words, and in all my actions, and that I may be emptied of everything else.
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
