I was never sure what love is or if love could be defined or be distinguished by one true definition. All I know is that as I’ve grown, so has my definition of what love is or what love should be.
Love is
never the same. It changes and evolves.
Love expands and contracts. It has peaks and valleys, good times and bad. Love
does not come without mistake or flaw or pain.
There will be arguments. There will be moments of question and doubt but love perseveres.
Love is not just a feeling. Love is an action. Love listens. Love forgives; it tolerates but it is never compromised. Love is not all good things, always smiling, always happy, and always pleasant. Love exists in pain, in sadness, in good times and in bad. For richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health; love remains constant.
Love is laughter in the middle of the toughest time. Love is a drive to nowhere, just because. Love is a meal shared between us. Love is a snowstorm that causes us to unexpectedly stay in.
Love is the
moonlight that seeps between the curtains and shines upon the face of the one
you love, and suddenly, nothing is so bad anymore. The mass confusion of life
on life’s terms is not so confusing anymore. For the moment, love is the only
thing in the room.
That’s love
Love changes. Love reaches the heart and withstands the test of time. Love is an old couple walking down the street, holding hands, and showing an unforgettable bond that will outlive us all. Love is a young couple seeing this, witnessing it, and praying this will be them someday, old and still in the kind of love that grows on a daily basis
Love is a picture. Love is a photograph that makes the heart race. Love is a memory. Love is a movie. It’s a song. Love has been described and defined by writers and poets for as long as the written word existed.
Love is a lyric
Love is Bob Dylan singing, “When the wind is blowing in your face and the whole world is on your case, I can offer you a warm embrace to make you feel my love.”
Love is a Van
Morrison’s song called Sweet Thing. It’s when he sings, “And I shall drive my chariot
down your streets and cry, hey, it’s me I’m dynamite, and I don’t know why.”
It’s when he sings, “And you shall take me strongly in your arms again. And I
will not remember that I ever felt the pain,” that’s when I think of you.
Love is an
instrumental. Love is an orchestra playing beneath a clear night’s sky. The
stars are bright. The moon is full.
I say love is all of this. And I say love is more.
And more, love is this thing that keeps us moving; it keeps us wanting. And I
want to feel it. I want to live it, laugh it, or cry it out as loud as humanly
possible.
Love is this astronomical thing; it’s an event; it’s a memory; it’s a girl that walks through a door and suddenly, everything in life is divided by the days before and after the first time we met.
Love is more though; it is more still. It is this thing. It is this ever expanding, mind-blowing thing. As soon as we know, we learn we only know a portion of what love is. But what we know we will always know, so long as we know love.
For example,
true love is resilient. We know this.
True love is stronger than steel. There is nothing so strong as love. There is
nothing so strong as a mother’s love or a father’s love. There is nothing so
strong as our love from the heart because on its behalf, there is nothing we
would not do for love or love’s sake.
Love happens
without regard for time or color or place of address. Love moves the way we
move. So move well.
Love well.
Love as best as you can without apology, without explanation, and without
regret. Love as much as humanly possible because once we outgrow this humanly posture; our love becomes spiritual; thus the
spirit is endless; therefore our love is endless.
And believe
me when I tell you
I love you.
However, my
love does not mean much unless it is given. I was taught a poem by a friend. I was
a kid at the time. I was angry, selfish, self-centered. He was much older and
pained and sick, but still, he gave me this poem to keep me from his mistakes.
He taught me this:
“A song is not sung until you sing it
and a bell is not run until you ring it
and love in your heart was not put there to stay
for love is not love
until you give it away . . .”
I know my love
is new, every day, reborn and justified
if it is up to me, my love will never die
If it is up to me then I will never die either and then you and me will be
lasting longer than eternity. And if it were up to me, I would have it no other
way than this: My love is all I have. So please, take this. Accept it and keep
it. I give this to you, wholeheartedly, humbly.
I am only man, which means I am human.
There are times when I feel like Simon Peter when he faced the Son of Man, weeping in the face of his mistakes, which means I am flawed like every man, which means I am flawed like every woman. We are all flawed and I understand this now.
I am a series of complications and mistakes. I am insecurity. I am frustration. I am anger and I am pain. But I am also love.
I am also redemption.
I am my own resurrection and so long as I allow myself to become resurrected and corrected, then my mistakes have not defined me. However my love has defined me. It has redefined me, continuously, unendingly, from now until the hour of our death
(Amen.)
This is me; pouring my heart out to you
This is my love
so please, take this from me.
Accept me and keep me
Wherever
Forever
From now until the end of time
With you . . .
