Unconditional love and unconditional friendship have been a common theme in my life the past few weeks. I’ve been pondering the awesomeness of the unconditional love Jesus shows us. While we strive (or should strive) to be more like Jesus every day, it’s hard for us to show unconditional anything!

We are very self-centered. If you love me, then I’ll love you. If you buy me roses, then I’ll love you. If you are a good ball player, then I’ll love you. If you are not gay, then I’ll love you. These conditional statements are based on choices people make. We also look at conditional statements based on things people cannot control. If you are white, then I’ll love you. If you are black, then I’ll love you.

There’s a young woman who plays softball on my church team. It is rumored that she is gay. I say rumored because I, personally, do not know for a fact that she is gay. Many people have said she is, but I have never come out and asked her — and she’s never asked me out. Hence the “rumor.” Honestly at the beginning of the year, I did not want to play with her. I couldn’t understand why she would even want to play church ball knowing that the church does not agree with the gay lifestyle. Some of us at church would talk about the situation. Some would say we need to reach out with love — use this as a witnessing opportunity. I struggled with this because I didn’t want to reject this young woman, but then again I didn’t want to enable her lifestyle either (how self-centered is that? thinking I enable her lifestyle by not coming out and bible thumping her).

How do you witness to others by playing softball? Seriously, I’d been contemplating this question all season. At the beginning of the year, this young woman never said anything to me. Part way through the season, I’d try to talk to her and encourage her (nice hit, good play, etc.). Then I found out we had some mutual friends — ones I hadn’t seen in awhile and ones she plays ball with on the weekends. So we’d talk here and there catching up on different people. I asked my Better Half how I could possibly witness to this woman and he said we should pray about it. So we did.

During a highly tense tournament game, this young woman got hurt. She always gives 120% in playing ball, and this was one of those times. She hurt her shoulder pretty bad — we were concerned she had dislocated her shoulder. Some friends left with her and took her to the hospital and we resumed our game. The next day, my Genius Better Half emails me and says “you’ve been asking how you can witness to <this young woman>, get her phone number and call to check on her.” Ugh is what I thought. It’ll be kinda awkward, but of course the Genius makes a good point. So I got her number and called to check on her. She didn’t answer so I left her a message saying I hope she was ok — she’d been in my prayers — and if she was up to it, call me and let me know how she’s doing. She called back and we had a nice conversation. She hadn’t dislocated her shoulder — just bruised it really bad, but she thanked me a couple of times for calling her.

I share all this — not to try point to myself, but to point to God. My human side didn’t want to talk to her — like she had the cooties or something. My human side didn’t want to play ball at all. God had different plans. I don’t know if I’ll have more opportunities to talk to her, but I started thinking about things from her perspective. She probably doesn’t have much unconditional love or unconditional friendships in her life. Her church friends are probably focused on her being gay. Her gay friends expect her to act differently. Everyone has their expectations of her — the conditions of their friendship and love. I hope and pray that I don’t make her feel like that. If God so chooses, I hope He’ll show His love through me to this young woman — that she will have at least one non-judgmental friend she can talk to.

How so very thankful I am that Jesus did not have any conditions on His love. God loves each and every one of us because we are human — we are people. That’s it. He created us and He loves us. Some of us are murderers. He still loves us. Some of us are just liars. He still loves us. Look past the exterior you see on others. Look to the heart of the matter. If you look and you don’t see Jesus, then pray for them. Until you have Jesus in your heart, nothing else matters.