By Ife J. Ibitayo
For Part 1, “Love is Patient”, click here. For Part 2, “Love is Kind”, click here.
I hate my name. Let me explain why before my mom dials me with a very angry phone call. My full name is Ifeoluwa, meaning the “Love of the LORD.” In Nigerian culture, names carry weight. They describe who you are called to be from cradle to grave. And through my few decades of living, I can already see how short I fall of my own.
Loving Through Rebuffing
December 25, 2015 was my first opportunity to play a Christmas playlist I curated for my family. At 7 AM, I began blasting the great classics like “What Christmas Means to Me” and “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas.” If you don’t recognize those songs, don’t worry, neither did my family. And they gently asked me to put on some more traditional Christmas tracks.
I grated at their lack of appreciation and dragged my little brother downstairs, certain he’d value my awesome musical selections. Being slightly more interested in his Christmas presents, he didn’t, and I shoved him. I hadn’t ever laid hands on my little brother like that, and for me to attack for him something so trivial shook me.
Speaking of the Israelites as the little children in His life, God said through the prophet Hosea, “‘When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called My son. But the more they were called, the more they went away from Me. They sacrificed to the Baals, and they burned incense to images. It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by the arms; but they did not realize it was I who healed them” (Hosea 11:1-13 NIV).
God’s own children abandoned Him. They turned their backs on Him and spurned His loving care. They took His blessings but rejected His instruction. Yet His faithful love for them never wavered. He healed them graciously, deferred His wrath mercifully, and disciplined them justly. He was never fickle or petty. In other words, He wasn’t like me.
Loving Through Suffering
My college experience encompassed the most trying years of my life. I spoke of the loneliness I endured during that season in a previous article. But that was only a small drop in the toxic brew that made my experience so bitter. A large source of my pain stemmed from my relationship with a professor I studied under.
My first year with him, he was distant. I could count the number of times I had a private conversation with him on one hand. The next, he was too close for comfort. He’d reach out at all manner of day and night, demanding results and pushing expectations. His moods whipped with the wind, from sunny and jovial one day to stormy and irritable the next. The pressure of his demands drove me to my very breaking point, and his hurtful words stabbed deep into my soul.
Nearing graduation, I vowed to forgive him for everything he’d done, but I always remained on edge in his presence. And after I graduated, every time I thought of him, the old pain would resurface, and I’d have to turn my thoughts to other things.
Yet Jesus begged His Father while being murdered on the cross, “‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing’” (Luke 23:24 NIV). The God of love was able to forgive those who only took from Him, while I struggled to forgive a man who contributed to where I am today.
Conclusion
I am not Ifeoluwa. I am not the “Love of the LORD.” I am not Jesus. But my saving grace is that Jesus is Jesus. He loved me even when I hated Him. He will continue to teach me how to be more like my Father because He’s made me His son. And through His work on the inside of me, I’ll bear a little more resemblance to the tremendous name I’ve been given.
“This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”
(1 John 4:10 NIV)