What is Love?

What is love? We all know Webster’s definition, and the Corinthian verses that explain love, but how is it played out in real life? Is the ideal of love that we see on television and read in books…is it all a big lie? Is it even achievable? Have we been duped?

I’ve struggled with knowing what real love feels like. I have shrived for love my whole life. I put on the defense of being “perfect” to gain my family’s love and acceptance for the majority of my life. If I work hard enough then they will love me. I did it with God as well…if I’m a good enough Christian then I can earn God’s love. I did it in my marriage…if I just love him through all his faults, then it will be ok and he will have to love me back. You see how that worked out.

I’m sure it’s not a secret that I’ve been in therapy for the past year, and I’m working through a lot of my issues with the idea of what real love looks like. My therapist recommended I read a book that has really opened my eyes to a lot of my issues and it’s been one of the hardest times in the past year as I work my way through this book; not because it’s a hard book to understand, but the implications and the memories that it stirs up are brutal. This passage leaped off the page at me today as I finished the study.

“Most adult children of toxic relationships grow up feeling tremendous confusion about what love means and how it’s supposed to feel. The people they trusted did extremely unloving things to them in the name of love. They came to understand love as something chaotic, dramatic, confusing, and often painful—something they had to give up their own dreams and desires for. Obviously, that’s not was love is all about. Loving behavior doesn’t grind you down, keep you off balance, or create feelings of self-hatred. Love doesn’t hurt, it feels good. Loving behavior nourishes your emotional well-being. When someone is being loving to you, you feel accepted, cared for, valued, and respected. Genuine love creates feelings of warmth, pleasure, safety, stability, and inner peace.”

I long for that kind of love. I’m working on myself this year…and what a year it has been. I’m facing a lot of my demons and I’m confronting the lies that I’ve been dealt for so long. In the process, I’m learning to stand up for myself and be the woman of God that I was created to be. I have a huge heart and a lot of love to give…and I’m not letting people…friends, family, etc. take advantage of that again. Look out for the new and improved Starr.