Love is Never Wasted

I've found that love is an urgency toward growth, no matter the way in which those to whom we give respond. True love is akin to true service- it is given despite the recipient's response of gratitude or understanding. The intrinsic value of giving is the enlarging of the capacity of the giver. This was well-stated by the late Elder Maxwell (Elder Neal A. Maxwell, That My Family Should Partake, in 'The Collected Words of Neal A. Maxwell,' vol. 1, page 95 (emphasis added)).

"Those who are large of soul, who have generosity of spirit, are also able to manage the big spiritual ideas and truths that little minds simply cannot handle. It was Paul who said that love is never wasted. Deserved praise in a family is never wasted either. It is not, of course, that the recipients of the love and the praise always respond in a manner we might hope. But it still can be said there is never any waste of love because the giver of such love, or such deserved praise, is also truly a beneficiary. The stretching of the soul and the reaching out to others can produce a capacity for generosity that may, in fact, exceed the capacity of the recipient to receive or to appreciate the love or praise given.

But love is never wasted because, at a minimum, it enlarges the capacity of the giver; in that sense something good always happens."

The Eldest Sister, Adolphe William Bougeureau, 1886