love wins

These past couple of weeks, between writing cover letters, searching for apartments, and serving my cousin and her children as an au pair, I have been squeezing in time to read Rob Bell's Love Wins. Before reading this book, I heard a lot of controversy surrounding it. The biggest problem that people seemed to have with this book was that Rob Bell apparently says "there is no hell." Either these people never actually read the book or they completely missed the point. I have been pondering the message Bell is trying to convey through this book. In the meantime, I have also begun working on my "worldview" paper as a part of my India trip/senior seminar. The thoughts I have been jotting down as notes for my paper have been influenced a lot lately by what Bell has to say. We all live in our own little hells. We turn away from God daily by choosing to do or think or say little things that go against the beautiful life God has planned for us. We are actually designed to strive for the best; to strive for a world in which everyone lives according to the free love God gives. But we mess up. We go against God. But guess what? God still loves us. He chooses to love us--He loves us through all the hurt and the pain and our disregard of Him. The real kicker is that this is how God calls us to live as well. Forgive and love. No matter what. How do you begin to put the past in the past and begin to love everyone? A friend of mine recently asked me, "Have you tried praying for those that have hurt you over the past couple of years?" I replied, "It's hard. How do you even begin to figure out the right things to say to God about the people who have hurt you most?" This is tricky, but when you finally admit to yourself that you have also caused wrong and hurt to others (and to God); that you are not perfect or even better than those that have hurt you--well, this is the moment when forgiveness can truly begin.