Article December 27, 1982 ISSUE

It's what you do that counts

FRANCINE MIENIK

How often have you said to yourself, "I wish I could feel love for that person, but he is so unkind (difficult, cruel, boring, angry, and so forth)"? We know we should love more, and we want to; and yet we seem unable to feel that love Christ Jesus spoke of when he instructed us to love our enemies, bless them that curse us, do good to them that hate us, and even pray for those who use us despitefully. See Matt. 5:44 .

How can we feel the love that will enable us to follow his remarkable counsel? I was really searching for answers and found one in a children's book. In A Wind in the Door, Meg, the heroine, asks Proginoskes, the cherubim, how she can possibly feel love for Mr. Jenkins, the disagreeable school principal. The cherubim finds Meg's question extremely odd, answering: "Love isn't how you feel. It's what you do." Madeleine L'Engle, A Wind in the Door (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1973), p. 116 .

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