What is love??

I was reading through some old posts and I found one that really made me think. It was from February of 2006, so about a year and a half ago...almost two years.

February 21, 2006
I find myself wondering what exactly love is. What is real peace? What is the kind of love that has you wanting to give everything of yourself for the sake of something else?...for someone else? To me, real peace and love are the experiences we have in life. The silent moments where everything else fades away…the moments that make you gasp in the sheer joy of being alive. When your stomach jumps and actually starts hurting because of something beautiful that someone amazingly special says to you. The surprise and complete joy that is found in the smallest words of love is what living is all about. Silent moments at the park, alone, swinging on the swings and quietly watching a new mother playing with her toddler in the grass. The clouds gently floating across the sky ~ moved along by the gentle breeze that makes you want to close your eyes and simply…fly. The crisp, lonely nights when you get into your car and drive in the darkness…no one else is around. The world seems oblivious to your existence. The streetlights are dim, the breeze dies down…and you’re alone; except for the light on the top of the mountain. That single glow that lets you know that there is someone else. You are not alone even on the darkest nights. When the snow is falling down…heavy…slowly…and you step outside and stand in the middle of the street. All is calm and as you close your eyes and simply take in the simplistic beauty…the simple knowledge that you could stand there forever. Tears start to find their way onto your cheeks as you stand there in the middle of the road on the snowy, peaceful night. You wonder what the future holds for you. You wonder if you will ever have a moment like this again. A moment where you feel so in love with life simply because you are alive. The heavy snowflakes repeatedly find their way onto your cold face yet you feel nothing. The tears warm a path down your quiet face. You are here right now…and that’s all you need. Even the moments of pain can show beauty, love, peace…when the tears relentlessly race each other down your cheeks and find themselves falling onto your pillow at night. Can there not be peace there as well? When you find yourself with your arms held tightly across yourself in a type of hug…a hug desperately hoping and needing…crying out for relief and strength to keep going. When you find yourself lying in bed and all else is quiet except for the cries in your heart. And the questions…the questions that rise from no where and cry out for answers. When you’re lying on your floor surrounded by nothing but space…endless space. And the soft, gentle music that sings out from your stereo. Aren’t those moments times to look back on and think…at that moment in time…I was living. I am alive ~ I experience pain; I not only find, but I look for beauty. And I find it. I find it in silence, in laughter, in pain, in joy. I have found love and peace in the most remarkable places and it is that knowledge…to know that love and peace are mine to find and to hold to…that keeps me going. Maybe love is who you find yourself with…the memories you make…simply…being still and knowing that you are here today for a reason. You are beautiful. And shouldn’t that be enough to have love. Love is who we become as we live, learn, press onwards to the goal God has called us to. God is love…and he’s allowed us to experience little pieces of him. Right here….right now. So grab on tight…experience beauty…accept quiet peaceful moments…and just love.

I was just reading this and at first I yearned for the girl who wrote that. I yearned to be her again and to feel that hope and that innocence. Because that's a girl who is innocent. I wanted so badly to return to being that girl. But then I realized that no...I would never want to go back. Because the views and perspectives that I have today are who I am now. I was just thinking...I wrote this before I had ever been in any sort of relationship. Before I realized the work and the heartache that sometimes goes along with love. This was written before I had been to Africa. Before I saw the hundreds of children with AIDS and then looked at the faces of the ones caring for them. The men and women who committed their whole lives to loving these children...all the while knowing that these children's lives wouldn't be long at all. I wrote this before I held a 7 year old girl trapped in the AIDS riden body of a 3 year old. I held that darling girl and as I looked into her eyes, I saw such pain and hopelessness. Yet I watched that same girl scoot forward next to her aunt while silently asking to be prayed over by our pastor. I held her last March. When I went back in September, she was dead. I wrote this before I heard the testimony of our pastor in Zimbabwe. His story of how he, as a 9 year old boy, walked in on his father after he had committed suicide. How this pastor was beaten and broken but then found Jesus. He is completely in love with Jesus Christ and now he has a church, runs an orphanage, runs a shop from which the proceeds go directly to the orphanage...I have never before met such a man. I wrote this before I learned what it was like to be lied to...hurt beyond anything I could have imagined. So I don't wish I could return to that girl I was in February 2006. I've seen more now..God's allowed me to get a bigger picture. I now realize that love isn't always fluffy and magical. Of course it is at times. But love...the kind of love that never will fade...isn't defined in feelings or in situations. Real love is messy. Real love gets dirty. Real love is fierce beyond all previous experiences. Real love is sacrificing. Real love is a choice. And real love hurts at times. I want to be a girl who goes through life really loving people. I will get hurt in it, I will get dirty, and I may not have the picket fence life that every girl imagines herself having. But I imagine that someday, when I'm dying and about to meet my Savior face to face, I won't regret having loved people with a real love...the dirty, messy, painful, sacrificing love that Christ showed me on the cross 2000 years ago.