What Is Love

What does the Bible say that love is? Is it the same as what our culture says that it is?

No.

Our culture says that love is lust. But lust is NOT love. Lust is selfish, love is selfless. Lust is passion driven, love is thought driven. Lust is thought to be uncontrollable, a "falling into love," real love is a choice, a decision.

You don't "fall" in love; you either decide to love or not to love. It is a conscious choice. Just as much as you might decide to serve at a soup kitchen. You are not really loving someone until you can set yourself aside and serve the other person. 
 
Love is caring for another person more than you care about yourself.  It is wanting them to be happy no matter what.  It is serving another person.  Love is selfless.  It is being able to forget yourself and focus on another person. 

Love makes you a better person.  Love makes you more humble and less concerned about your own well being all the time.  Love helps you to grow unlike anything else can help you grow.  Love helps you to see God in ways you never could before.  Love helps you to see yourself in ways you never could before.  :)

Loving someone makes you stronger.  Loving someone teaches you how to take risks, how to put yourself out on a limb and look like an idiot for the sake of the relationship.  Sometimes that is necessary daily. lol 

Nothing can change who are as a person like learning to love someone and being loved in return by them.

I still cry sometimes because I miss my late husband.  But, "better to have loved and lost then to have never loved at all."  I agree with that saying.  I am glad I could have the experience that I had.  :)

And I know God has a reason for taking his life.  I still am not sure what that is yet, but I am trusting that he's got everything covered. lol

Looking back on my time with him, we had a lot of fun together.  We went to parks together a lot, went swimming a lot and talked a lot.  He was my best friend, but we did have our fights. 

I think we fought because the relationship was worth fighting for. 

Fights also come as a result of being so close with someone.  You bring up tough issues because you care about their well being.  As Scripture says, "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another."  That is marriage; constantly being sharpened by each other.  It is not always easy or fun, but it is good.

We supported each other financially whenever either of us needed it; we were a team. 

 Roger showed me that men could be different than ones I had known before.  He showed me that men could be respectful and self-controlled.  He always treated me like a lady. 

We hit some rough spots when he tried to get off of his medication.  He couldn’t sleep at night.  He felt like he couldn’t breath. 

That’s why I hate medication so much and thus my blog on medications, cause I had to watch what they did to him. 

It wasn’t a perfect relationship but a perfect relationship does not exist, for anyone. 

Everyone has issues and it will be hard no matter who you’re with. 

But in the end it’s worth it.

Because life is much more enjoyable when you have a team mate to share it with.  And life is much more doable when you have someone to pick you up when you fall.

Scripture says, "Two are better than one, for if one falls down, his friend can help him up."  That was like our theme verse for our marriage.

It's also worth it because you learn to forget yourself for the other person and they learn how to serve you. 

Love can be a beautiful way to grow into a better and more selfless person. 

Love is not about what you can get from the other person, but about what you can give them.

It's about the joy you get from knowing their life was/is better because you were/are in it.  :)

Are you making someone's life better?

I hope so. 

In the movie "The Bucket List" Morgan Freeman says the Egyptians believed to get into heaven you would have to answer 3 questions.  One was, "Did your live bring joy to others?" 

May we all be able to say when our lives are over that our lives brought joy to many, many people.  :)  Amen? 

God bless!