Do you love me?

So I feel like every time I write this I need to apologise for lack of communication...there I did it again...moving on. I'm currently in Canada enjoying the festive time of year with my WHOLE family which is an extremely rare occurrence and something which excites me greatly.But I realised at the beginning of this week how tired I actually was-when I went to sleep at 7.30pm one evening only to be awake by 6am the next...a healthy 11 hours sleep and I felt human. There have many things that have been on my mind to share but I think I will save those until I come home...
What I want to share is a revelation/ thoughts I was having this morning...Over the past few days/weeks I have-maybe not always consciously, been considering the concept of free-will and what that means in terms of our relationships, our walk with God, love etc. I initially came to the conclusion that I didn't like free-will, because with free-will it meant people could make their own decisions, chose to go their own way, whether or not they love someone else etc. Having realised a number of months ago that I am, in fact, a control freak...this is frustrating. I realised that I also didn't like having free-will to a certain extent. I know God has the best for me and so I WANT him to control, I WANT God to make my decisions for me as I know that they will be best. But as I reflected and spend time reading today and thinking I had a revelation I suppose, if you can call it that. Free-will is actually one of the ultimate acts of love. The fact that God gave us free-will in the first place is an act of love. He could have controlled us, he could have MADE us do His bidding...but He didn't. My favourite Disney film is Beauty and the Beast and there is the part when Beast lets Belle go to be with her father, who is currently lost-dying in the woods. Cogsworth then comes in and commends the Beast for how well the evening is going and but the Beast whispers...'I let her go.' Cogsworth then says, pleading 'how could you do that?' in reply the Beast says, 'I had to' and from Cogsworth, 'yes but but but...WHY?' and the reply comes 'because, I love her' and there it comes, free-will is the ultimate act of love. To let go of your control over someone else and let them make the choice, that's real love.Love is NOT self seeking (1 Cor 13) Its not about me-its about preferring the other person. I've also realised the film Moulin Rouge was wrong...the greatest thing you will ever learn is NOT to love and be loved in return. I've come to believe the greatest thing you'll ever learn is to Love even when it's not returned. To be able to love and still love even when the person does not return it is AMAZING.
I've also realised what delight must be in Gods heart BECAUSE of our free will. If we chose to love and obey out of our free will how immense must Gods delight be?? I mean - I get excited when someone I love text me not out of reply to other message-just because they wanted to contact me - I love that, it delights me. How much more will it delight God when we chose to love Him and obey Him from our free-will.But also-it must be so painful to watch when they don't love-even when God knows it would be the best thing. Love, true love is painful...to quote Misty Edwards song, 'Arms wide open, heart exposed'...I'm slowly beginning to see that true love is painful but its Gods way. If love is not about me-then I need to learn to love people how THEY want to be loved, not just how I think I should love them...i.e. not everyone experiences love through physical contact like hugs, or through words of encouragement. For others its time and sharing interests and whilst I may not understand-that is how they experience love and I need to learn how to love people the way they wish to be loved...Love is not self seeking.

Isn't it funny how when you share testimony about what God is teaching you about something He may take you into a season of learning so much about that exact thing...almost as if to say to us...You're not there yet