What is "Love"?

What is "love"?  What is it "to love"?  What is it "to be loved"?

I struggle with what love is in the same depth that some people struggle with the question, “What is the meaning of life?”.

It’s not that I have never been loved.  Truth be known, I have grown up in an extremely loving home.  I have an amazing family and amazing friends.  I have always known the love that The Lord God has for me.  I have always been loved and I’ve always known that.

I have always cared deeply for people.  I thrive on helping, supporting, and caring for others.

But this love thing…I don’t understand it.  And then I realised why:

We live in a society where everything around us is sexualized.  And when I say “everything”, I mean everything!  It’s next to impossible to find a TV show or a movie that doesn’t regard a simple, basic, loving relationship as anything more than sex and some happy-go-lucky feelings.  And if a couple within the program isn’t having sex and they aren’t happy-go-lucky, their relationship is doomed.

I’ve always known that a romantic relationship isn’t purely about the sex.  Sex is one of the few things that can be taken out of the equation and still have a functioning relationship.  It may not be as fun as desired, but people can function without sex.

Remember, I’m talking about love.  I know what sex is…sort of.  Although I’ve never had sex and I don’t plan on partaking in said activity anytime soon, I’m starting to think I understand it better than I do, “love”.

That bothers me a lot.

Let me get one thing straight right away: I don’t watch porn.  I’m that person who hovers the mouse over a 14A movie on Netflix, IMDb’s the movie and reads the parental guide, goes back and hovers over the link yet again, and ends up looking for another movie to watch.  I’m twenty years old.  I watch stuff that would make my mother shudder and lecture me, but I draw the line!  Yet somehow this stuff is okay for a fourteen year old to be watching?  And come on, you must be completely ignorant if you think the ten to thirteen year olds haven’t watched the 14A movies I’ve declared “inappropriate”.  It’s horrific.

All that to say, even these not so vulgar and relatively appropriate films and media have drastically tainted my perspective on love and relationships.  Nearly every show or movie these days has someone cheating on someone or some marital relationship falls apart with no avail to pick up the broken pieces and try to fix what went wrong.

If it’s a children’s movie where two parents are getting a divorce the plot will often lead to the famous: “It’s wasn’t your fault, kids!  Don’t ever think that.  Your mother and I just don’t feel the same way about each other as we did when we got married.  That doesn't change our love for you, though!"

Just stop.

Good job teaching your kids what love is.  Not.

Yes, divorce happens.  Yes, it is brutal.  No, it doesn’t mean parents stop loving their kids.  But that doesn’t mean that it teaches love.

If this is how the face of love is going to continue to be presented to the next generation, and if these images truly depicts love for what it is, I don’t want to ever be loved by any man!  It sounds horrible.

I would now like to bring in a reality check:

There is more than just “love” that we’re dealing with here.  There is…

1.       falling in love – which I would prefer to call “finding interest and chemistry”

2.       being in love – which I would prefer to call “enjoying interest and chemistry”

3.       friendship love

4.       family love

5.       committed love – which I will also call “true love”

Falling in love is that time when a girl sees a guy and gets all these butterflies in her gut and wants to hide before anyone sees her crimson face.  It’s when two people are soaring on a high of crazed emotions.  They enjoy spending time together more than they enjoy breathing.  They don’t want the moment to ever end.  This is a process and there is no regulated timeline attached.  It can be ongoing indefinitely.

Being in love is when you see that special person and you are filled with so much joy.  There’s a good chance that there are some butterflies involved.  This timeframe can be overlapped with falling in love but could probably be classified as a little bit more down to earth.  Maybe.  This is past the awkward part of “falling” and now you’re just “there”.  Still though, emotions and hormones are raging.

Friendship love can mean a couple things.  It can mean that you’re the “best guy friend” and totally “friend zoned”, or it can mean that you are friends and your friendship is valued immensely.  The person you go to over everything from how to get a stain out of your first apartment’s carpet to boy problems to a family member’s death.  Friendship love is there through it all.  It’s the love and support you look for when parents, siblings, relatives, and spouses just don’t cut the mustard.

Family love can be very similar to friendship love but it can also be very different.  Friends come and go.  Some of us have learned that lesson much harder than others.  Family is different because although you might not want to be or like to be related to them, you are and always will be!  Even the most dysfunctional families hold a certain bond.  They might hate each other’s guts and tell everyone they meet how much they hate their family, but if someone were to start hating on them…watch out buddy…’cause you’re as good as dead!  We might not like our family, but we do (usually) love them.  Unless, of course, they are your spouse because in that case according to current media, you can stop loving those but just not your kids.

Committed love is the final type of love.  This love is the love that can travel through all the other realms of love.  It’s “true love”.  It’s unconditional love.  This sort of love is becoming extinct in the same way we talk about chivalry becoming extinct.  Neither are extinct, but the way we harbour both of these things would lead one to think that they just aren’t a thing anymore.  It’s a two way street.  Both people need to be on board and committed to true love.  Through thick and thin, this type of love carries on and does not waver.

I’ve talked about the types of love, but I still haven’t spelt out the definition of what “love” is, so here it goes:

“Love is patient, love is kind.  It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  Love never fails.” 1 Corinthians 13:4-8

True love isn’t about the mushy gushy feelings and sparks flying -- it’s so much more than that.  You can’t live your entire life with the crazy raging hormones.  It just isn’t a thing.  True love is committed love. 

I’m about to sound like a horribly cheesy pre-teen magazine…

How do you know if a person loves you?  Or, how do you know if you love someone? 

Well, are they patient towards you?  Are they kind to you?  Are they protective of you?  Are you protective of them?  Do they trust you and do you trust them?  Do you have hope around them?  When everything is going dreadfully wrong, when there doesn’t look like there is any possibility for things to straighten out even a little, do you both persevere for each other?  Will all of these things listed above never fail to be true?

Or are you envious or boastful towards each other, always trying to outdo the other?  Are either of you proud?  Are they rude to you or you to them?  Are you caught up in yourselves and not thinking about the other’s wellbeing?  Do you set each other off over any little thing and get angry?  Are you both keeping track of how many times the other did something wrong or angered you?  Do you or they delight in evil?

If you are to be in a romantic relationship with someone and you frequent any of the things listed in the second paragraph, true love is not being achieved.  The second paragraph is very self-centered and when it isn’t all about you, you are watching and anticipating for your significant other to mess up.  You shouldn’t be so upset with this person whom you “love” so frequently that you are keeping track of each thing they’ve done wrong.  We’re all human.  We all make mistakes, but the extent of those issues really do determine how much we care about the person we are hurting and how much we care about them to forgive them.

Yet again, it’s a two way street.  True love must be reciprocated both ways.  It isn’t enough for someone to forgive someone over and over again with the other person never changing their ways.  That’s abusive.

If this can’t be achieved, true love between a romantic couple will never truly happen.  We all have issues that we struggle with, but these issues should not be so great that it ruins a relationship we have with a spouse.  Some people were just not meant to be with some people.  That’s okay!  Those people can be friends -- just not someone you marry.

Then beyond that, just because you and another person have all of those paragraph one points doesn’t mean that you are supposed to get married.  As I mentioned before, this true love thing can cross over and be blended with other types of love.  The factors of personality, life goals, location, and so forth play a very significant role is this romantic love and marriage thing.

 

I think one of the reasons I’ve felt so out of touch with the meaning of love is because we throw this word around as we do the word “like”. 

“That was like so cool!” or “Like, I was thinking we could meet at around like 8 o’clock?”

It’s like so annoying.

“I love that shirt!” or “I love going to the mall on a Saturday afternoon.”

I don’t love how we don’t have another word to insert in sentences such as those in the place of “love”.

To recap in a nutshell:

The feelings and excitement you have for a person must be reciprocated by that same person, but that is not the real heartfelt definition of what love is.  Love is not just an emotion but also an action.  True romantic love should also be a joint action.

In conclusion:

I think people should be told that they are loved, but I think it is crucial for them to know what type of love you have for them.  Caring and being sensitive to someone’s needs and respecting them can be very different from falling in love with them and being zapped with comradery, chemistry, and respect simultaneously.

I don’t think love comes entirely from the heart but also from the head.  We can’t always choose who we have chemistry with or like, but we can choose who we love.  I think we need to stop thinking of love as an explosion but rather as a lifestyle.

If there is anything out of all my ramblings that I want people to take away with them is this:

If you can’t love someone in every way 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 tells us to after all the butterflies have flown away after years of being together, verse 8: “Love never fails”, will not be possible.  Don’t become romantically attached to someone permanently if you aren’t willing to hold out and follow through with verse 8.

It is essential that we figure out if we have true love, committed love, till death do us part love, before we take a serious relationship to the next level of seriousness (marriage).  I really believe that if someone goes into a marriage and it “just doesn’t work” it is up to those people to strive to achieve committed love.  It could be a very long and challenging road to travel along, but the commitment of marriage is founded on the basis of love, so that is what must be achieved.  Even if you don’t like the person anymore, you must remember that that is not what marriage is. 

So, what is marriage?  It is Persevering Love.

One Last Thing:

If we devote our lives to Jesus, put Him first, and love Him wholeheartedly, He will give us the direction and strength we need to have good, long lasting, beautiful, loving relationships with others.

**Please note: I don’t think it is right for someone to stay in a relationship where there is physical, mental, or spiritual abuse happening.  I don’t believe that God wants us to stay in a situation where our own person or families will be put in danger.  Sometimes distance is the best way to love – especially if you are not being loved by who you are trying to love.**