Sunday, April 25, 2010

Misunderstanding of Love

I was browsing facebook and looking at one person's profile leads to another person's profile etc.  I came across a "friend" who has just gotten out of a pretty long/serious relationship in the end of 2009.  A relationship that claims that they loved each other.  Three months later, this "friend" is now with another person and everything is all lovey dovey, I love you, I'm-so-glad-i-found-you stuff.  I just don't understand how a person could "fall into love" and then "out of love" and then back "into love" in such a short time period.

Doesn't love take time to grow?  Isn't love a process?  And how can you truly know someone in such a short amount of time?  Can you really learn every single little quirk about a person in three months?  What about the other person's flaws, can you learn to love that in three months?  Ultimately, how can you truly love if you don't know Jesus?

There's the worldly definition of love, and the truth.  I feel like the term "love" is thrown around so loosely in our society that it's become another word for "really like."  I know that there is a difference between being in love and to love.  We love all the time, everyday.  I think we show love everyday through our actions.  But to be in love, I think that is a long long process and should be forever.

I thought I was once in love, but then lately I've second guessed that.  Perhaps life just happened (ref. 500 Days of Summer) and that's how we fell out of love.  But shouldn't being in love be forever?  Obviously that thing I called "being in love" did not last forever.  Did I know the true meaning of love back then?  The only way we can truly love is to know that Jesus first loved us.  His love is unfathomable to us, we could only try to emulate this love towards others and back to Him.  His sacrificial love for us, His grace that we don't deserve, His mercies that we receive everyday, the everlasting love that He gives us, His providence all around us.... Perhaps, when I feel this way towards someone, then I am truly in love.  And in order to do that, I think it takes lots of time and getting to know the person inside and out, experiencing Jesus' love in each of their lives together and separately, knowing that the other is also trying to love how Jesus first loved us.

Love is complicated, yet so simple.

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