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LoVE

LoVE is…

It is so difficult to describe the meaning of the word love because there are so many different kinds. Here are some of mine…

Unending. The love I have for my mom who died when I was 31 is unending love. I was with her from the beginning of my life in the hospital until the end of her life in the very same hospital. She is gone but she is still with me in my heart and my memories. That love will always be there.

Immeasurable. The love I have for my dad is immeasurable love. I wouldn’t be alive if he hadn’t met my mom back in 1970. He was and is a good man and he has always been there for me. He is a quiet soul and I am exactly like him in many ways. He is disabled now and tells me he wishes he could help me more. He worries that I’m single and struggling on my own. He has already helped me more than he knows.

Grateful. The love I have for my best friends is grateful love. It is a love that I am thankful for beyond words. Some of the people in my life who have stuck by me through all of my craziness are saints. I love them for not giving up on me.

Sweet. The love I had for my first boyfriend is sweet love. He was the first guy that I gave my heart to. We had no idea what we were doing but it is a sweet memory.

Heartbreaking. The love I have for my college sweetheart is heartbreaking love. I loved him like family and he loved me the same, but I destroyed that love. I broke his heart and my heart has been broken over and over again since.

Sad. The love I have for my longest unmarried relationship is sad love. So much potential, and so little drive to become what we could have been.

Happy. The love I have for my first husband is a happy love. He brought out the good parts of me with his adventurous spirit and complimented mine.  

Awakened. The love I have for my second husband is awakened love. He woke me back up from a deep sleep I had fallen into and I didn’t even realize it.

Broken. The love I have for my best male friend/boyfriend is broken love. If you cannot get it together after 10 years of being on again off again, always bringing out the worst in each other…it is time to let go.

Motherly. The love I have for my cat is motherly love. Don’t laugh. Not everyone is meant to have children including me and this furry creature fills a gigantic void in that area. He is my best little pal. He knows when I am upset or sick and holds my hand with his paw. 🙂

Forbidden. The love that I want but cannot have is a forbidden love. But it is a love that reminds me that I can love again and my goodness that gives me so much hope.

Playful. The love that reminds me of how I felt in elementary school when I chased that boy at recess is playful love. He passed me a note that read “Will you go with me?” We held hands at the skating rink and nothing else in the world mattered for the two hours we circled around under the disco ball with 80’s music blaring. I have felt that kind of love again in my adult life a couple of times and it is the best feeling.

Adult. The love I have for my next partner that I haven’t even met yet is adult love. It is the kind of love that you have when you realize you cannot control the other person and they cannot control you. Instead, you support each other’s dreams and goals and allow one another to grow separately while at the same time you grow together in your common interests. You don’t try to make the other person be someone he isn’t. You decrease your expectations and you increase your acceptance and you love this person for who they are right now and not who you want them to be. Period.

Potato. The love my coworker has for harvesting potatoes is potato love. 🙂 Her FB profile makes me smile every time I see it because it is a heart shaped potato she dug out of the earth. Her potato love reminds me to appreciate all of the little things in life.

Indescribable. The love I have for God and the love He has for me is indescribable love. It is the love that is always there while all of these other types of love come and go. It is the love that knows no bounds. It is the love that forgives me on a daily basis because I am a sinner and I don’t deserve this kind of love. Yet it rains down on me and I can never wash it away. It is the love that tells me I am not a failure when I tell myself I am…or when someone who claims to care about me tells me I’m a horrible person and un-Christian. It is the love that tells me everything is going to be okay even when on the inside everything feels like it is falling apart. It is unconditional love. It is like trying to comprehend the universe, or the word forever, or trying to figure out “who am I?” Or the meaning of life. It is indescribable and perfect.

“Love is just a word until someone comes along and gives it meaning.” This is true…and sometimes that person needs to be you.

Blessings,

Stacey ~ iamalive

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1 Corinthians 13

1If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 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. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, 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. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 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.

 

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