True Love

ok. Now I know what a lot of you are thinking. Either, "how can a christian girl be talking about this", or "seriously, another stupid article about how God is this person's true love".
And if you aren't thinking that, good for you!
I am writing this, because I have recently made a very personal discovery of what true love is. Not because I found it, but because I didn't find it. To surmise I experienced first hand that loving someone is a choice. It is not a feeling, an emotion, how excited you get when you see that person, how much you enjoy touching or kissing the person. It is a choice. Finding true love, doesn't mean that you've found the person that makes your stomach fill with butterfly's when they touch you, it means you've chosen to love someone no matter what, and they have chosen to love you back no matter what.
I have found so often that people are defining love by how much the person wants to touch them, or be around them, or how many fireworks go off when you touch. That is SO unhealthy and it is SO wrong, in fact, if you that is why someone "loves" you now, if they don't make a decision to love you later, you will get your heart broken.
Choosing to love someone means that you have seen their hurt. You've shared their pain. You know their bad side. You know how annoying they are. You know at least some of their sins. You know that they sin more than you know. BUT! You have chosen to love them because you have seen how wonderful and beautiful they are, and you have decided that they are worth going through ALL the yuck (that we mentioned before), because of that small part of them that is wonderful and beautiful.
That is what love is. It is a choice. To go through the yuck, to feel the pain, to put up with all the little things, all the big things, because you have decided that what is good in them is so wonderful, that it outweighs the bad.

Finding true love is not always possible, because it takes two people choosing to love the other like this to find it. But it does happen, if you choose to love without reason, forgive without limit, and lay your heart and your life on the line.
That is how you find true love; by choosing to love, and choosing to love, and choosing to love, and choosing to love again, and again, and again and again and again.


Yes some people are lucky, and they find love at first sight, and they do "fall in love". But if they marry that person, have they made the choice to love them forever no  matter what? Do you know someone who fell in love at first sight? Are they still married? If they are, then they made that choice, and let me tell you, they have made it more than once! If they aren't, then they didn't make that choice, if they made it once then one or both of them chose to stop loving the other, whether consciously or subconsciously. Whether in an instant or slowly, and that is SO sad, and SO hard, and SO devastating, for both of those people. Not only the person who was left, but the person who chose to stop. When you choose to stop loving someone, at any level. You shut part of your heart off to them, and you shut part of your heart off to God. And that is the most devastating thing you can ever do; is shut the Healer, your Papa God, out. Because then you are left empty, filled only with your own hurt, cowardice, and fears. Upon occasion you may stumble across happiness. But you will never experience the joy of the Lord. until you let Him back in.


Now my prayer for you is that God gives you the strength to choose to love your friends, your future (or current) spouse, your children, your family. That He gives you peace when they choose not to love you back. That He becomes your stronghold when they leave you, with your heart broken into pieces. That He gives you hope, that you ARE loved, and will be loved again. If you are hurting for any reason, but especially over losing someone you love, or being deserted by someone you love. Then I hope and pray that you will find purpose, and a true love in your heart for God, as well as for others. If you are in a calm spot, then I pray that you will build up your faith, build up your strength in Christ and in your friends, that you will choose to love now, and that if/when trouble comes you will find love. True love in Christ. That you will find hope and strength to choose to love, and to be a chosen recipient of love, again.
May the God of hope, faith, peace, and love, fill you with a desire to love without reason, forgive without limit, and give up yourself for those you love and who love you.
Amen.