Love Does Not Brood Over Injury

We lived in Janesville, Wisconsin, during our first two years of marriage.

There was a natural food store that sold Hain natural tortilla chips, which became one of our favorite treats.

We would buy a bag of Hain’s chips and a block of pepper jack cheese.

We used a cheese grater to shred the cheese into small pieces.

Then, we sprinkled the grated cheese over the tortilla chips and put them under the oven broiler until the cheese became golden brown and bubbly.

We ate an entire bag in one sitting, satisfied with that tasty treat.

Sometimes, those cheese-covered chips were our only meal.

But it wasn’t the same if we tried to cut slices of cheese with a knife and layer those slices on the chips.

The sliced cheese was too thick.

It didn’t melt uniformly; it didn’t spread and flow to cover the chips once it melted.

Grated cheese became fluid once it melted.

It could fill the cracks and cover the entire surface of the chips, even the edges.

So, what does grated cheese have to do with love, not brooding over an injury?

The term grateful, which often means thankful, can also be “heard” as “grate full.”

Grating.

Resentful.

There is a choice to make in loving.

Not all circumstances and situations in life are pleasant or to our choosing.

I have a choice to make.

I can be grate full.

I can sulk, dwell on the negative, pout about injustice, get stuck in the past, or mope over my poor fortune.

When I behave like that, it grates on me and on others.

It shreds my happiness and the joy of others.

And in the oven of life’ trials, the resentment melts and spreads throughout my mind, memories, and outlook.

Not a tasty treat to anyone.

Or I can be thankful for the good times, happy for others’ good fortune, and live in the present to see what I can do with the current life moment.

Being grateful to God for the situation and the chance to grow in the skill of acceptance, forgiveness, pardoning, and letting go.

Either way, it’s a choice to make.

Shredding cheese or spreading peace.

Want to read the next attribute of love? Click on the underlined text to go on to “Love Does Not Rejoice over Wrongdoing, but Rejoices with the Truth.”