When my brother and I were little, we loved playing with our cousins on our aunt’s teeter totter. My brother’s favorite thing to do was to sit on it and not push up. So, I would be stuck in the air. My little legs dangling, yelling at him to put me down! It’s actually quite funny now, and completely older brother behavior. He also used to send me down my grandma’s laundry chute. Back then some houses were built with them. The chute would go from upstairs to downstairs and we loved landing in the laundry pile. Grandma did not support this. Eventually I was the last one small enough to fit and the last one my brother convinced to take a ride down it. Big brothers, always teaching their younger sibling’s tolerance and showing adventures that we may not have thought of on our own. Despite my brothers’ shenanigans, he also did do some nice things. Like doing my hair when I was little, carrying me in his arms all the way home after a bike crash was met with a pricker bush, and standing up to some bullies for me. My brother and I haven’t been close over the years. Though this is simply that we are both good people, just different people, with different personalities. That doesn’t go to say that we wouldn’t be there for each other in a heartbeat though. We are different, yet, that doesn’t mean that we don’t love each other. I love my brother very much and only want good things for him, as I am sure he would say the same for me. This got me thinking with all the differences and viewpoints in the world, that doesn’t mean we have to hate those that think differently than us. We can have different personalities, ideas, beliefs even. Though in no way should we ever hate or act unkind or be cruel. We can think different and we can disagree. We don’t need to bend who we are, to still offer kindness. For we are not called to hate, we are called to love. Friend, we are all different, we live in a world with many types of personalities and viewpoints. We don’t have to agree with everyone’s point of view. However, may we still handle everyone we encounter with love, just as God has called us to. I think back to my brother and I when we were young. We were always different in character, right from day one. Though I love my brother as he is, and he loves me as I am. The sooner the world learns that you can love and disagree, a lot more peace there will be in the world.

Erin Fitts-Brower

Love your neighbor

Colossians 3:14 NIV

 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

Romans 12:18 NIV

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.

Galatians 5:14 NIV

For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”