Love Looks Like Something

Interestingly I have been dealing with the word love lately. What does it mean and what the heck does it look like. The Webster's definition of love is : a strong attraction for another arising out of kinship or personal ties, enthusiasm, attachment to an object or devotion.

That doesn't give me much to go on. We flippantly say all the time "I love that movie, I love that restaurant." Or even tell others we love them. So how can this one word that has such power be used when referring to inanimate objects and people alike. I also see a problem with this definition because it speaks only to people you know or have relationships with. What about God who tells us to love our enemies or what ever you do for the least of these you to do Him?

See love was allusive growing up. It had many conditions and rules. To acquire it you must be worthy to receive it. Love meant you had to work for it and even at that if you did something wrong, made a mistake it was snatched from you and you were left empty again searching for something. Growing up I began to hear young men say they "loved" me. They said it to my face and promised me true love but this too came at a price. I had to be willing to give myself up to them physically to receive their "love". By the time my Knight came along I was so confused with what love looked like I threw myself at him the moment he told me he loved me. That's all I knew. Unfortunately because neither of us were  walking with the Lord my Knight gave in to my pursuit and we lived together for a short period of time before we got married.

Then I thought maybe now I found my answer, marriage. That's true love right? In the movies it looks so beautiful, so refined and elegant, but as the days turned into months and the months turned into years love still forsook me. As I painfully concluded love to be this allusive mysterious treasure I would never find I began an even more destructive path of rejection. I rejected those who told me they loved me. For me I believed a lie that to protect myself from the pain of rejection I would need to keep everyone at arms length. What a lie the devil spun in my heart. It only made me feel the sting of more rejection. The Father told me countless times again and again the He loved me. It didn't make sense to me. I screwed up, I was a bad girl. There was no way the God off all creation could love someone like me. If I couldn't do the right things to get people to love me how could God just love me like this? So the Father took me on a journey to reveal His love and believe me, His love looks nothing like the worlds......... to be continued.