Want to Learn How to Love Better? Grow in Holiness

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

I love memoirs and biographies. I find myself inspired by the stories I read. I try to learn from the amazing experiences people have committed to paper. It nourishes my desire to grow and gain perspective from others.

Two of my recent favorite memoirs are Breaking Night by Liz Murray and The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. Their stories are inspiring and poignant. Full of heartbreak and the joy of new beginnings.

Both Liz Murray and Jeannette Walls had a rough upbringing. Raised by parents who were dealing with addictions, they were often left to fend for themselves. They experienced poverty, hunger and even homelessness. 

Reading and listening to their stories, it was hard not to be angry at their parents. How could they neglect their children so much?  Don’t they love their children? Don’t they care for them? 

As I got deeper into their stories, I realized that the lack of love wasn’t the problem here. Both Liz and Jeannette share moments of joy with their parents, where their love for them shone through even amid all the brokenness. They were deeply loved by their parents. And yet they still suffered a great deal under them.

How is this possible? How can love co-exist with so much abuse and neglect? 

If they truly love them, we might be tempted to say, they wouldn’t abuse them or neglect them as they did.

We tend to imagine loving families as a safe environment where everyone is safe and protected and no one suffers any lack. All you need is love is the song of our culture.

But Liz and Jeannette’s stories made me realize that love by itself is not enough. Love needs a vehicle to get it going. Love needs actions to be expressed and manifested. And this action is character.

Without character, love is left motionless. Love is reduced to a little more than a feeling.

I am convinced that Liz and Jeannette's parents loved their daughters. Their love, however, wasn’t always in full display because of the arrested development their characters suffered because of their addictions.

Character is what keeps love moving. It is what brings love out of our beings and expresses it to ourselves and others. But not just any character will do. One can use good character traits like discipline and self-control for evil purposes.

The character that is better suited for love is a godly character. “God is love” reminds us St. John. “…and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.” (1 John 4:16). It is no wonder that God desires that we grow in holiness! 

Think about it. If our world lacks holiness, our world lacks love. If our churches are not committed to holiness, they are not committed to love. All our talk about "the way of love" in The Episcopal Church and how we need to be more loving towards others, especially those on the margins, without a serious commitment to holiness, is little more than virtue signaling. 

Holiness is a multifaceted endeavor, but one way to look at holiness is by the imitation, nurturing, and cultivation of godly character. The imitation of Christ and His character is one way to practically define holiness.

This is a way to “abide in God.” We abide in God not only through prayer and contemplation. Prayer and contemplation are essential first steps in our growth of holiness because we naturally start adopting the character traits of the people we engage with.

Another is the intentional imitation of the character traits of God. 

What are the character traits of God? At the risk of sounding cliche, I don’t think there is a better list than 1 Corinthians 13: 4-8. Commit this passage to memory and strive to daily nourish patience, kindness, lack of envy, and the other traits listed in this beautiful passage.

Want to learn how to love better? Then let us commit to practicing holiness!