A lot of people ask about love – how to love and how to be loved. Love is not easy, and it is neither a game nor sport. Love is not a race. Love is not doing the things that you want and what you should not. Love should not be forced. Love is…what is love, really? Love is explained in a lot of contexts, in a lot of books and a lot of ways.
The Bible says, “Love is patient, Love is kind. Love is not boastful or envious or arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” St. Paul, First Letter to the Corinthians Chapter 13 verses 4-7.
Thoreau, a famous poet and essayist once said, “There is no remedy for love, but to love more.” And Mahatma Gandhi said that, “Where there is love there is life.” Love is described in different quotes, different books, and by different people. Love can be very unpredictable and very unsure. Love can be wrong but love can be right. Love can be full of hope but it can also be full of despair. Love is unsure.
But what really is love?
Is it properly described by the songs we love hearing? Those that always seem to remind us of the people who made us feel loved and those who hurt us? Where they say,
I have died every day waiting for you.
Darling don’t be afraid I have loved you.
For a thousand years.
I’ll love you for a thousand more.
Is love all about the rhymes and the message from poems? Like what Elizabeth Barrett Browning would said in Sonnet 43:
How do I love thee?
Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
Is love all about the quotes that we say we can “relate” to? Where you believe in “Love at First Sight” and say that “Love is in the air”, are those really true? Is that what you believe in?
This is LOVE:
I believe that family is love because a family helps you to become a better person. Arguments and misunderstandings may happen, but at the end of the day, they are still your family.
From the day your mom gave you life until the day you die, they are still your family. A family that will love you even if the world turns its back on you.
Even when the skies go dark.
Even when the world shakes.
Even when you are happy, sad, excited; they will always be there for you.
Family is not an important thing. It’s everything.
Your family is your “shoulder to cry on”. During every struggle, and at every stage of your life, they will help you.
This is LOVE:
I believe that God is love, for He made so many miracles in life that really moved me.
God is our creator!
I’ve had so many problems to the point where I felt like giving up.
Problems including family, friends, and school.
All of that changed when someone invited me to their “Sunday Youth Service”, where they talk about God. I became such a believer. Whenever I have problems, I just pray and talk to God because I believe.
The definition of love is an extreme
affection for something or someone.
Most of us pray to God and show our extreme affection for God. The name of God revolves around us all the time, during morning prayer, the church or temple and so on.
We take the name of the Lord in happiness and sadness.
This is LOVE.
I believe friends are love, for they are the ones who will also help you when you need them the most.
They will always be there for you,
whenever and wherever you need them.
A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.
Friends will always stay by your side,
even when the future looks bleak.
Friends can form a very strong bond with each other, this love and bond is based on care and concern for one another. Friendship will not be easily broken even through the inevitable conflicts, that bond will continue to thrive and will always lead friends back to each other.
Love is not just about two people loving each other. It is not just about having a girlfriend or a boyfriend. Love is not just about romance. It is all about what’s in your heart.
It is about the people who stayed in your life “for better or for worse”, “for richer, for poorer”, “in sickness and in health”. Spread Love not Hate.
That is why God put our hearts leaning on our left side, because loving is not always supposed to be right. Love is all about doing the things to make the people you love, feel loved.
Love is also a sacrifice.
Love can be the right person but during the wrong time. Or, Love can be found at the right time but with the wrong person.
Love is what it is.