Love Life Lessons

Hey Girls,

God is an expert on love but we, well, we seem to have trouble sometimes grasping the concept. In one way, we know about love because we know we love somebody; we love our family. We know it as a feeling of attachment. Yet we also can know feelings of being 'in love'. We have different experiences of love. We change so the way we love people can change.

Yet what I'm getting at is a form of continuious love. Lasting love, not rushing emotions like the rollarcoaster deal but love as effort. Think about long term relationships for a moment and they don't have to be with a guy, it could be with your parents or a sibling. You know deep down that you love them. That doesn't change but the daily acts of love are what demonstrate those feelings. It's these daily acts that sometimes become difficult. Yet they're often what make the person feel loved. As we get to know someone better, we get to know their likes and dislikes so we can use that to show love to them better. When we stop trying to love, that's when relationships can turn rocky.

Learning to love is sometimes easy, sometimes hard. It's easy to love someone who loves us back. But it's hard to love someone who couldn't care less about us, who annoys us to no end, who may act mean to us on purpose or just be plain indifferent. It's those folks who are harder to love but who we have to love nevertheless. God loves everybody and so we should do the same. After all, Jesus ate dinner with society's cast offs and even when they killed him on the cross, he still asked God to forgive them. That's love. Even though it's sometimes the hardest to love someone that our personality just clashes with, it's important to try. We don't have to go all out and send them presents or do a big gesture but just speaking kind words, trying not to get defensive or offended, acting friendly- all that can speak of effort to love.

Everyone loves in different ways too. You've probably heard how everyone has a different love language (quality time, physical touch, words of encouragment, gifts/gestures...etc)? What's yours? Think about it for a moment because you're top love languages are the telling method of love you use to love others. People love how they want to be loved. It's just natural that way. Yet as we learn to love someone more, we discover their top love languages and if we make the effort to love them in their language than that will mean even more to them. In marriage relationships, that's an especially good thing to do. When couples step out of their 'natural' love language to love each other using their spouses preference, than good things will happen; their love for each other will deeper because they are reaching out in the way the holds the most meaning for the other person.

Although, none of us learns to love overnight. We aren't born with an inate ability to love all the time in all the right ways. We mess up. It's a process like any other. We have to learn. The more we study, the better at giving love we become. Our relationships will deepen and grow over time as we continue our efforts to love one another, continue learning on how best to do that. When people stop making effort, that's when things fall apart. So keep the effort up, at least do your part even if you don't recieve love back- God doesn't always, and yet he keeps on loving everyone anyways.