The possible impossible

It's like a riddle.
What is the possible impossible?
According to writer Leslie Leyland Fields, the possible impossible is . . . love.
Love.
It's such a nice word.
It conjures up images of pink hearts and sweet kisses and moonlight and candlelight and . . . sacrificing our selves for others and death.
Wait!! What?!
In one of the books I'm currently reading, Parenting is Your Highest Calling: And 8 Other Myths That Trap Us in Worry and Guilt, this issue of love is looked at in a refreshing way by author Fields. I say "refreshing" because she is enlightening about what love is Biblically, and encourages that while we are human and will most likely never be perfect at loving all the time, it is possible to love the way Christ does because, by dying on the cross for us while we were yet sinners and forgiving us freely when we ask Him to, He made a way for us to love like Him.
She is writing about it in terms of parent/child relationships, primarily, but as I am reading, I realize over and over again that we are incapably capable, and called to sacrificial love not only with our children, but with our spouses and families and friends, brothers and sisters, as well.
This kind of love is hard to read about at times, because it seems impossible to do.
And that is the point.
In and of ourselves, we are incapable of loving selflessly, unreservedly. It is only because God first loved us, and gave himself up for us in the person of his Son, Jesus Christ, that we have an example of how to love that way. Dying to self to serve another.
When our hearts are breaking, and we love anyway.
When it asks more of us then we think we have to give, or want to give, and we give and give and give.
When it costs us everything, and we buy into it anyway, knowing we may receive nothing in return.
That is real love.
Not that there is anything wrong with the oooey-gooey, hearts-hanging-over-my-head, feel good kind of love. I rather like this kind of love myself. But what happens when all the goo oozes out, and the good feelings are gone, and loving means getting up in the middle of the night to get a cup of cold water for a thirsty child, or helping your spouse find a pair of socks, or giving a friend a call in the middle of your busy day just to say hello and encourage them, or serving hot meals to the homeless on a holiday evening. (I know I'm playing this out a bit, but if we really are going to love selflessly, shouldn't we go there?)
And really, can any of these scenarios compare to opening your arms and dying for all of fallen humanity? To knowing each fallen person personally, intimately, completely, and still loving them enough to die for them while they are yet spitting on you, rejecting you?
I want to love like this more.
It is sooooooo hard though!
I am sooooo selfish.
And it does not always feel good.
Actually, mostly, it downright hurts!
But. . . it is not impossible, though it may feel that way at times.
A way was made for us to love like that.
Not an easy way, granted.
But it is a way that leads to fullness of life and true joy and salvation and . . . love.

"Truly, truly I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal." John 12:24-25

"If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, his is the one who will save it." Luke 9:23-24

"There is no greater love than this, that a man should lay down his life for his friends." John 15:13

On a side note: I highly recommend the above mentioned book, especially for parents. It has been very helpful, insightful and freeing in many areas.