How do you know when you are in love? When you don't have to ask people how you know.
Lately, I've been dealing a lot with differing opinions. How can two people have two such different feelings? How can one believe they will be together forever, and the other see them being only good friends? Why is it that one person can say "I love you" and mean one thing, and one person think "I love you" and feel something totally different? Is love truly so diverse? Perhaps. Or is it that people's perception of love is what is truly so diverse.
For kicks and giggles (being that I am of the internet era), I google searched "definitions of love" and pulled up the first link. The first section had over 20 different definitions (most of which I didn't care for). One did stand out, however, and it was "the benevolent affection of God for His creatures, or the reverent affection due from them to God." I liked that one. The next section had 18 definitions, many similar to the ones in the first section. Ones that I didn't particularly appreciate were the ones who listed love simply as:
"sexual passion or desire."
"a love affair;" (which is just dumb since you're not supposed to use the word in the definition! ha!)
"sexual intercourse; copulation."
"to have sexual intercourse with."
Now, I am no expert in "love" whatever it may be, but I'm pretty sure this common conception of love may explain part of the World's problems (or at least the United State's problems) with love and marriage. If love = sexual passion. Period. We would have a big ol' problem.
While I didn't like 95% of the definitions of love - for lack of depth, for a completely different idea than how I see love, or whatever the reason - they did prove that there is definitely more than one opinion of what love is.
The definition that I did like, the one that related it to our devotion to God and His caring for us, lead me right into my next source. The one that was sitting next to my bed that I had reached for first, then decided to see what the world said first (just cause I wanted to see how wrong the world was this time).
I opened my bible up to one of my favorite chapters and books of the bible - 1 Corinthians 13. I'm sure most of you know it well, but I'll put it up here anyway. Starting in verse 4.
"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no records of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails."
Now my Mom, being the extremely wise woman that she is, has told me that if I want to be someone worthy of loving, I should put my name in place of "love" (i.e. Kortney is patient, Kortney is kind). She has also told me to do the same with the name of the person who I am loving and wondering if maybe, just maybe, they could be my husband.
Something that I have really been drawn to the last few times I read this was that these verses are describing God. Which brings me to my conclusion.
If people are having such differing feelings on whether or not they are in love - they need to compare it to this verse. Both themselves, the other person, and the love/relationship that they have with each other. They need to give it to God, to trust Him completely and pray only for His will to be done (because praying for our will to be done is really quite selfish, and therefore not congruent with love as described above.)
God is love. End of the story. I now know that I will know when I am in love - because it will be God-breathed.
Thanks for baring with me while I scrambled my way through this thought process to get these feelings and thoughts out. If you are now thoroughly confused, I apologize. If you read through all of this then I applaud you!! You're great :)
Anyway, it's way past my bed time and so I am going to happily drift towards peaceful dreams of my true love now... Goodnight.
Kortney
