What is Love?

First let me just start by saying the title of this blog makes me want to bust out my dance moves and get down!!  :)

But seriously... what is love? 

People say it all the time.  We say we love our friends, our family, and our significant other.  Some people even take it a step further and make lifetime commitments to loving another person (also known as marriage).  But when you ask someone for the definition of love, almost everyone will come back with a different answer.  In my search to define love, I came across this dictionary definition:  

love [ luv ]   

1. feel tender affection for somebody: to feel tender affection for somebody such as a close relative or friend, or for something such as a place, an ideal, or an animal
2. feel desire for somebody: to feel romantic and sexual desire and longing for somebody
3. like something very much: to like something, or like doing, something very much

After reading this definition I was a little disappointed.  So... love means to basically like someone and desire them? 

 I don't think so! Good try Webster. If you want to know what love is, look at the way your parents bend over backwards for you, listen to the way friends compliment you, and watch the way your significant other stares into your eyes. Love is a term that can't be defined in a dictionary.  Its a term that can only be lived and experienced to understand.

I am sure you are all familiar with 1 Corinthians 13, and the bibles definition of love (I mean let's face it, almost any wedding you attend will have a reading from 1 Corinthians.) 

1 Corinthians 13

  ⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
 ...
 
 ¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the GREATEST of these is LOVE. 

While we are only human, and it is impossible for us to live out this crazy little thing called "love", in the perfect way the bible describes; I still believe we as humans were created to love and be loved. 

We all have a desire in our heart to be loved, and we all have the ability to share love.  So today the challenge is to remember that we may not be perfect; but we should still love with all our hearts, all our souls, and all our minds.  There is no time for judgement.  There is no time for grudges.  Let things go, and love like crazy.  Mother Teresa said it best when she said: 

 "I have found the paradox... that if you love until it hurts, there is no more hurt, only more love."

...Now doesn't that sound amazing  :) ...