Love is…

For most of my life, I can remember looking for and wanting the attention of men. Even at a young age, I remember my grandmother telling my mom that I paid too much attention to boys. Looking back on it now, I can see that boys were my “fix”. A little smile, a little attention, and I felt good!

I was always looking for that attention because deep down inside that is what fueled my worth and value. Male approval meant that I was worthy, I was good enough.

At the age of 25, I realized that I had to do something different. I decided for the first time in my life that I was going to fast men. I wasn’t going to look for their attention, I wasn’t going to date, I was going to stand on my own. I went through an amazing season of being by myself. I studied the bible to try and learn what love was. True love. I thought I was getting love from every wink, every smile, but I never realized that all I was getting was lust.

Lust is empty. It is selfish, self-centered and has no regard for the other person. Lust takes; it doesn’t give. I realized that I had never really known love from a man, and to be honest, I didn’t even know what it looked like.

So, I studied. I learned about Love – God’s love for me, and what His vision for Love really is. We hear it all the time at weddings, 1 Corinthians 13 – but I had never really studied it, never really understood it, and never really experienced it in my relationships.

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

So I dissected each of these words, I used a dictionary and looked up the meaning of each word I had spoken or heard a million times, but never took the time to understand them in their true essence. It was life-changing for me. Each word took on a new, deeper meaning for me. I encourage you to do the same. And then ask yourself, are you in a relationship based on love?