What is love? A feeling? An emotion? I used to think so, but over break I’ve had lots of time to ponder this deep question. If love is a feeling or an emotion, then there are times when, for example, I would not love my little sister. She gets on my case, she annoys me, she drives me crazy, she angers me. Yet even when I can’t stand to be around her or when I’m so angry with her that I want to scream, if someone came into the room with a gun loaded with a single bullet and said, “Which one of you will die?” I would, in a heartbeat, throw her behind me and take the bullet. Love, I believe, is selflessness. It is servitude. It is humility. It is sacrifice. I believe that’s at the root of true, genuine love. It’s something other-worldly, something powerful, something mystical, something supernatural. A power or an influence that takes selfish, greedy, indifferent creatures and turns them totally around: love.
What about in the romantic realm? Let’s be honest here. Romantic relationships begin with infatuation. We are attracted to their personality or the way they fit into their clothes. That’s how boyfriend/girlfriend relationships are born. It’s infatuation. We throw around the word “love” like pixie-stick candy and treat it like it’s something we’re “in.” But is infatuation really love? Or are we just looking out for our own best interests? “This person makes me happy. This person makes me feel good. This person really cares about me.” Infatuation is not pointed at the other person in the relationship but at ourselves. We search for security, closure, and happiness in the other person. However, infatuation dies. When infatuation dies, oftentimes the relationships die. “I’m not in love with you anymore,” my first girlfriend told me. She did not want to work things through. She wanted to end it. No, she was never in love with me in the first place. She was infatuated with me… And when that infatuation died, so did her desire to be with me. When infatuation dies, relationships can take two routes: death or birth. The relationship can expire, fizzle out, decay, dissolve. Or the relationship can evolve into something more beautiful, more extravagant, more wonderful. Infatuation is the caterpillar in the cocoon, and love is the beautiful butterfly it becomes once it hatches out of its shell. The infatuation dies and love begins to grow: we begin to look towards the others’ interests, begin to care more for the other person than for ourselves. We begin to truly love them, wishing their happiness over ours, their well-being over our own. We become willing to sacrifice our time, energy, resources, even our dreams for their well-being. We become something entirely different. The relationship transcends to a higher plain, and an intimacy is experienced that could never be touched or experienced in infatuation. A deeper, better, and more wonderful feeling is experienced, something indescribable.
It’s sad to see so many people at my small bible college basing love off of feelings. It is sad to see so many couples becoming engaged or married after a few months before the infatuation wears off. It is sad to see couples breaking up when difficulties or conflicts come (we don’t live in a fantasy-realm, folks; problems will come). It is sad to see couples ending their relationships when the feelings of infatuation begin to dim. And it is sad to love and not be loved back; that is the worst, most heart-wrenching feeling in the world.
What about in the romantic realm? Let’s be honest here. Romantic relationships begin with infatuation. We are attracted to their personality or the way they fit into their clothes. That’s how boyfriend/girlfriend relationships are born. It’s infatuation. We throw around the word “love” like pixie-stick candy and treat it like it’s something we’re “in.” But is infatuation really love? Or are we just looking out for our own best interests? “This person makes me happy. This person makes me feel good. This person really cares about me.” Infatuation is not pointed at the other person in the relationship but at ourselves. We search for security, closure, and happiness in the other person. However, infatuation dies. When infatuation dies, oftentimes the relationships die. “I’m not in love with you anymore,” my first girlfriend told me. She did not want to work things through. She wanted to end it. No, she was never in love with me in the first place. She was infatuated with me… And when that infatuation died, so did her desire to be with me. When infatuation dies, relationships can take two routes: death or birth. The relationship can expire, fizzle out, decay, dissolve. Or the relationship can evolve into something more beautiful, more extravagant, more wonderful. Infatuation is the caterpillar in the cocoon, and love is the beautiful butterfly it becomes once it hatches out of its shell. The infatuation dies and love begins to grow: we begin to look towards the others’ interests, begin to care more for the other person than for ourselves. We begin to truly love them, wishing their happiness over ours, their well-being over our own. We become willing to sacrifice our time, energy, resources, even our dreams for their well-being. We become something entirely different. The relationship transcends to a higher plain, and an intimacy is experienced that could never be touched or experienced in infatuation. A deeper, better, and more wonderful feeling is experienced, something indescribable.
It’s sad to see so many people at my small bible college basing love off of feelings. It is sad to see so many couples becoming engaged or married after a few months before the infatuation wears off. It is sad to see couples breaking up when difficulties or conflicts come (we don’t live in a fantasy-realm, folks; problems will come). It is sad to see couples ending their relationships when the feelings of infatuation begin to dim. And it is sad to love and not be loved back; that is the worst, most heart-wrenching feeling in the world.
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