Love, for me is a sense of belonging. It is the idea of being able to belong to someone, to call someone my own and caring for them before caring for my own self. It is sacrificing my happiness, time and resources for someone else and feeling great joy and comfort in that. It is joyfully yielding to someone's request, without any anger or remorse. It is putting myself in harms way for another, without thinking about it for a second. It is about a sacrifice.
This reminds me off one of my favorite passages from 1 Cornithians
1 Corinthians 13
1 If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
And Romans 5:8
8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
"Love" has always been an extremely rough emotion for me. I disliked using the word, or just expressing that i care to another person. It has been changing for a bit now. However, i am still very uncomfortable around it. It is just a powerful emotion, it can change people, move them, drive them to do insane things or great things....or insane and great things. I think i am afraid of it.....so i dont express it well at all....i often fall in the trap of just wanting to achieve others' love by pleasing them, or buying it with gifts or toys etc. I believe love is more than that. Love is making the right decision at the right time. It is about caring for others enough to make them dislike you, but still make the right decision for them. It is about being faithful long after everyone else has abandoned the cause. It is about sustaining ridicule and isolation and facing your deepest fears, all for the right cause. It is not about physical infatuation, but an attraction to the spirit, to the mind and heart and soul. It is about the willingness to undergo extreme trials and tribulations and hardships...for a better tomorrow.
Love, belonging, codependence... We may have had this conversation last week!
ReplyDelete“If thou must love me, let it be for nought
ReplyDeleteExcept for love's sake only. Do not say,
"I love her for her smile—her look—her way
Of speaking gently,—for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day"—
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be changed, or change for thee—and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry:
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou mayst love on, through love's eternity.”