Lessons learned about Love

This past month I became engaged to a beautiful and wonderful young lady.  I fell in love with her because of her beauty, charm and personality.  This past year has taught me many lessons about love.  I have wondered in the past what love really is, why people love others, what the scriptures teach about love, and what it means to be loved.  I want to share with you what I have learned thus far.

At the beginning of the year I met a young lady who as I spent a lot of time around began to have feelings for.  She is a nice young lady, and as I got to know her I began to wonder what love is.  What is really means to love someone.  I wasn't sure and I asked her.  She didn't really give me an answer.  It wasn't until after we stopped seeing each other that I came up with my definition of love.

Love is different for each individual.  It means something else for my neighbor than it does for me.  My definition of love is this: to love someone means you must accept their past, their current flaws, and still wanting them to be around you and involved in your life.  Only after accepting this can you love someone.  Love is not a conditional thing.  You can't love someone until they hurt you.  If you don't love someone just because they break up with you than you didn't really love them in the first place.  You cannot place conditions on love.

Why is this?  If you put conditions on love it is not true love.    I came to this belief because of the way my relationship with the girl ended.  We had become close and she decided she wanted to end the relationship.  I struggled for a long time, hurt about the way she had ended it.  I questioned whether I had indeed loved her in the first place.  As the time past and my anger cooled I realized I had loved her; my way of coping with the hurt feelings was to blame her for my feelings.

Hate and anger drive away all feelings of love.  If someone hurts us we probably feel hurt and say we never loved them.  But I know I did love her. I believe the way we love someone can and does change.  There is a binding love between husbands and wives that is strong.  It will remain strong as long as both partners make the effort to keep it strong.  If you allow the relationship to suffer at all so will your love.  I know consider my love for this girl to be the way I feel about a great friend whom I have lost most contact with.

I know that God loves everyone.  I have felt His love for me, and since we are all his children I know He cares you.  No matter what you have done, His love for you is unconditional.  Unconditional love means that He loves you for you, not for what you have done.  If He only loved those who are perfect, than He would only love Jesus.  He does not say, "I only love the righteous."  He says He loves all his children, and he is saddened when we sin and live in wickedness.

That is something else I have come to understand: unconditional love.  I know God loves us no matter what we do, that even if we mess up, like I have so many times, again and again making the same stupid mistakes,  each time I can repent and feel God's love for me.  I have felt His love each time I repent.  I don't mean to sound like I know why God's love is unconditional, but I do know it is.  I guess I'll have to ask him why when I see Him when I die.  :)

I have heard marriage can be tough, but from where I am now in life, I cannot wait until I am married.  I am nervous about the adjustment of being married, the kids, the stress of having no money and tons of bills, but I know that marriage is ordained of God, and that if marriage is not hard at times it would not be worth it.  There are a lot of negatives about marriage, but I know that the positives vastly outweigh the negatives.