(disclaimer: this post is coming from an application on my phone. Any words spelled wrong or the use of a word that doesn't make sense can be blamed on a combo of my own mistakes and the replacement of the word I was trying to spell by predictive text.)
Love from my perspective is what is on my mind. For those of you who follow my blog, you already know I have a girlfriend named Ashley. She is wonderful and today we have officially been together three months. I bring her up again because we recently told each other those three little words that change everything: I love you.
To some people saying I love you to your girlfriend/boyfriend is no big deal. To me it is a big deal. It is a big deal because of my definition of love.
I have a definition for love and I like my definition. I once asked 600 people (friends from myspace when myspace was my main social network) what love was to them. I got all kinds of different answers. Many seemed superficial, some seemed over spiritual, some seemed too simple and a few too complicated...in the end I did find some people who also shared my definition of love, or at least came close to agreeing with me.
What I see now is that I was looking at this whole thing all wrong. What do I mean by that?I'm glad you asked because I am going to tell you.
What I mean when I say I love you doesn't truly matter to you. What matters to you is what YOU think I mean when I say I love you. My definition of love is simply that, MY definition of love. When you say I love you to me I am expecting you to act in a way that lines up with my definition of love. When I say I love you to you then you expect me to act in a way that lines up with what love means to you.
I am currently reading the Five Love Languages Singles Edition. In this book it talks about speaking your significant other's love language. Well it is a really good book but I am not talking about people feeling loved through acts of service or quality time. I am talking about what we really mean when we say I love you and what we expect when someone says they love us.
What do you expect from someone when they say I love you? That depends on what you think love is.
I have people who I love that I don't have a close relationship with anymore. Does that mean I lied when I said I loved them? No. Does that mean I don't love them anymore? No. Not in my opinion, but it is just my opinion!
If I love you but you keep abusing my trust I will distance myself from you. That doesn't mean I don't love you. It doesn't mean we will always be distant but love is not a doormat.
Most people have someone in their family who has made a lot of mistakes. Someoe who can't be trusted or counted on. Does that mean that you stop loving them? Not in my definition of love, but maybe in your definition if you don't "feel" that you love them right now than you don't love them. Maybe you loved someone and you "fell out of love with them" or you "grew apart." I am not just talking about a spouse, it could be a friend or a relative...but either way in my opinion you can still love someone that you don't have the same "feelings" for that you once had.
Love to me is a choice. I love you no matter what you do. We may not always have the same relationship that we once had, but I will always love you.
What I found out is that not everyone sees love this way. The people who don't agree with me are not wrong, they simply have a different view of love. Love to them isn't forever. Love is based at least partially on feelings and love is not forever.
When I see people do and say things to people who they said they loved I am amazes and I used to want to correct them and then I realized something. They are showing their definition of love. They aren't wrong because they are different, they are just different.
We have all taken different roads and led different lives to get to where we are today. Who am I to tell you that what you think about love is wrong? I'm no expert. I'm not a scholar, I don't have a best seller, I don't even have a great track record when it comes to "love," at least not the romantic kind.
All I can do and all I will ever do is try to love people. I see no higher calling than that. I know God loves me. You don't have to agree with my views on God either, love is still going to be what I will always try to show you. If your defintion of love is not: "A decision based on your character for the selfless promotion of someone else" that is fine...but that is what I will try to show to you. Life is too short and people are too precious to live any other way.
I was told for years by a lot of people that either they couldn't see me as a "preacher" or that they didn't think I should be a "preacher." Now I get paid to be on staff at a church. It is my job to help people and to show them that God loves them.
I do my very best to do that and I have been able to help some people since I came to Arkansas...but the day I started this job is not when I started loving people and the day I stop this job will not be the last day that I do my best to love people. I truly believe that you will never lose when you just love people...whatever that means to you.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
