While I was sitting in psychology class today, I had a new thought.
I have a hard time loving people (which, unfortunately, is not the weird thought). But it's more than that.
I have noticed that when I'm struggling to love someone, struggling to be kind to them for whatever reason, I imagine them praying. (Idealistic tendencies...). That's strange, I know. People act certain ways, but in the real presence of God I think everyone would be humbled to the point of kneeling in admiration, no matter who they are. And so to imagine people in such a position, to see them as their potential self, has helped me treat them better.
But there's something very wrong in that.
God loves me just as I am. He does want me to grow and change and mature, but He loves me unconditionally, all the time. And I am called to love my neighbor in the same way that He loves. I must learn to love others exactly as they are, not as who they could be...and for no other reason than Christ's beautiful, irrational love for me.