Love

What do you think of when you hear that word? Do images of blushing brides, red roses, and butterflies in your tummy come to mind?

I suppose all of those are sometimes the result of love. But it's so much more complicated than that, and I've been trying to get a grasp on what love really is. I know for sure it isn't simply a feeling, like the world often tells me.

I Corinthians 13 has much to say about love, of course. And according to the Word, love is very often a choice ... not a feeling. It's awesome when the feelings do accompany the act of love. But they are not necessary in order to truly love someone. Love, to me, seems much more of a choice than a feeling. Why? Because it would be impossible for me to love someone else if that were the case. I simply do not have the love in my heart to give consistently. And yet, the Bible tells me to love. So I know that it is possible. But I also know that I cannot do it on my own.

Love has to be placed in my heart from an outside source.

Divinely placed.

I want so badly to be enabled to love. God puts great emphasis on loving others, and I simply want to impart His love to other people. So I've been acknowledging my own weaknesses in this area, and asking for His help in giving me the strength to love others as He does. I know He will answer. And my hope is that I can be used in a greater capacity through Him enabling me to show that love to others.

A few thoughts on love:

“I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.” ~Mother Theresa

Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.
~ 1 Corinthians 13: 4:8a

Where there is love, there is God also.  ~ Leo Tolstoy

 People need love even when they don't deserve it. ~ Nikki Ledbetter

“Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.”  ~Robert A. Heinlein

And here is a song I've been listening to that helps me remember some important truths about love:



May God enable all of us to love our spouses, children, extended family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, fellow-believers and even complete strangers.

~Brenda