Love: Being

 *thoughts of a 15 and 19-year-old*

I want to believe that love is a fruit, a virtue to be possessed by everyone. It is not something you possess overnight but something that must be practiced. Love grows. When I think about love, I visualise a path. At different points in that path, love reveals a part of itself to us. Everyone is capable of Love. 

Love is huge. It is a big deal. It cannot be fully understood or possessed but is discovered and continues to be discovered all our lives. That is a part of life’s journey. Love, the concept, is so deep we only know a fraction of it. A fraction that is usually unique to each person’s view of life and yet the same. Love is so wide that to even begin to search is a journey beyond life.  

The concept of love cannot be fully grasped. It can never be fully understood. At some point you will see it for what it is, in variations, never everything. At another point you will get an understanding of its depth but only for a moment.

Love is so amazing and is never fully comprehended. This is because Love presents itself never all at once. Each revelation is new, unique and causes an overflow of emotions that exceed the emotions you have come to recognise. A progression.

Love is powerful. So powerful that even a little of it can provoke a war, or spread mercy enough for the world. Love, the concept, the being, the unfathomable.

Love, the fruit, the virtue, the action. It never fails, never ends. It is transcendent. It brings joy and in the same measure pain. It breaks, it mends. It wounds and strengthens. It is compassionate, it forgives. It is always right, never wrong. It is laced with the good and bad, a contrast at times. There are days I am overcome with the realisation that this is what Love entails. Ha!

Love is beyond the words ‘I Love you’ expressed. Love endures. It is beyond how you feel for a loved one. It is all encompassing and permeates from you, the being who has Love (not shows love but has love).

Love is confrontational; ‘this is wrong, but this is the right way to go about it’. Love is rebuking but not condemning. Love is not only about what or who you like.

Love reveals itself in everything we do. When in the wrong, Love causes us to be contrite. Love is not self-seeking. It is sacrificial. It aims to please and very often in unconventional ways. It is sincere.

My thoughts on Love will never ever do justice in defining Love. My experiences will never perfect my understanding of Love. That is what gives Love its power and what makes it alluring. For every experience and emotion you feel, the need to know Love and experience it deepens. Love has that hold on people’s hearts. A yearning.

Love protects, it perfects, enhances, beautifies, reveals, nurtures. Love is great and Love is everything. The bible says “And do everything with love” NLT version. Love demystifies and yet is a mystery. Hold on to love, not the version you think is love but the very being that love is. God is Love.

 1 Corinthians 13