Nearing a decade ago, I sat in a church as a pastor I respect gave a sermon. I don’t particularly remember what his sermon was about, but I took one sentence he spoke that day and wrote it down. I have carried that wisdom with me all these years.

You can be right, or you can be love.

This philosophy can be applied so far and wide and I keep coming back to it over and over.

It’s been a rough week of parenting at my house. My five-year-old is experiencing the “feisty fives” that nobody warned me of, our kitten has decided he’s nocturnal, and my teenager “needs” a new phone. Desperately, I assure you. I’m worn out. Work is demanding. For the cherry on top, I’m babying a new injury that my dad has an incessant opinion about. So when one of my children wants to argue over the color of the sky, Mama is ready to fight.

You can be right, or you can be love.

Someone else I call friend is choosing a different path than I. One I wouldn’t choose, and I know they wouldn’t choose mine, either. I’ve protested until I’m blue in the face, but it falls on deaf ears. They upset me with their words, though the person behind the words is full of compassion and goodness. We’re on the verge of losing relationship.

You can be right, or you can be love.

Yet another confides in me some heavy realities. The story is mixed with mental illness, betrayal, and moral failings of the ones who weren’t supposed to fail. I don’t know the right words to offer, the right advice to give, or even the right path to point them towards.

You can be right, or you can be love.

Our society champions “rightness” to the point of demise. Sometimes, we’ll argue long past the point of resolution just so we can rebuttal. We steward our own correctness like righteousness and far be it from us to have our stance questioned. It is such a dangerous attitude.

But love, am I right? Love covers a multitude of errors. Love seeks to connect rather than correct. Love seeks to win hearts instead of win approvals. Love finds no need to quarrel and fuss because love only knows right.

So when my five-year-old wants to discuss the difference between frogs and toads like she is a distinguished biophysicist, I’m going to champion her love for learning instead of inserting my own opinions where they really don’t matter. When my friend chooses her path, I’m going to trust her instincts for her own life and I’m going to honor mine, too, because both can coexist. Finally, the next time I have the honor of sitting with the hurting, I’m going to listen and let love heal, because I don’t have to have all the answers.

And for today, that’s good news.