the truth of love...and what it means to me

Love |lᵊv|

noun

1 an intense feeling of deep affection

* a deep romantic or sexual attachment to someone

* (love) a personified figure of love, often represented as Cupid.

* a great interest and pleasure in something

* affectionate greetings conveyed to someone on one's behalf.

* a formula of ending an affectionate letter

that is what webster says "love" is. but what is true love. in the romantic sense and non-romantic sense? we all have our own definition of what love is. but how many of us took the time to learn what it really means to love someone? how many of us have just said "i love you" with out any real "feeling" behind it? is love even a feeling? we use the word love about as often as we take a breath. i love cake. i love this, i love that. but what really does it mean to love. i have been wondering this for some time. i have talked about it many times with friends and non-friends. wondering, thinking, searching, wanting, and asking what is love. the following is what i have come up with in the last 23 1/2 years of life.

i look back to the first time i was in "love". i know my sister cassie knows this story so well i am sure she could tell it to you. as many of you know i was taken advantage of when i was younger. well that lead to many years of mistrust of woman, and even my own parents (they were not the ones that took advantage of me). where to start this story, oh where to start...i think i will start this story in the 5th grade. back then i hung out with a group from church all the time. one of the girls in the group would always talked about a girl from school that she was trying to get to come to church. the summer in between 5th and 6th grades she finally came to church. i can remember everything about that night. it was a hot saturday, cassie and i for whatever reason were not sitting with the parents, which was weird cause we always did. well anyway, we were out in the hall when i saw "her". wow is the word that came to mind. she wore a yellow tank-top with a white shirt over it, black pants, and "midget" shoes ie shoes that had like two inches of heel. so cassie and i talk to "her" for the whole serves. that night at home i told cassie that she was a total wow for me. it was what i thought was love at first sight was. soon there after we were hanging out all the time. most saturday nights after church we (the group) went over her house or some ones hang out. we became fast friends. i "loved" "her" because she was alright with me being me. we talked all the time. we even wrote letter to each other when i was grounded for the phone. funny cause we saw each other at least once a week anyway. all i know is i felt safe with being open with "her'. i told her that i liked "her" with in the first year of knowing her. a couple year goes by and we all enter Jr. high. wow what a time that was. i spent many nights hanging out at her house or she came to mine. truly a great friend. the funny thing was growing up my parents had the most rules when it came to almost everything, but i never had a set curfew. i mostly went home when someone could give me a ride or my parents came and got me. i can think of many nights when we would just hang out and talk for hours on end. well as life would have it she started dating one of my good friends soon after all of us started going to jr. high. that was the only time that i can remember we fought. me being jealous of something i could not have. ( i was not aloud to date at the time) but i got over it soon. and we were back to being great friends. i cant remember when, but at some point in time i told "her" that i would wait for "her" until the day she got married. in the 8th grade i moved about two and half hours away. it was really hard for me to leave my best friend. i did not have that many friends to begin with and the thought of leaving the one person who got me, who did not care who i was, what i did, and who i could always talk to, really scared me. we stayed in touch as best we could. over this time i liked other girls, but was always drawn back to "her". through out the high school years she dated. shoot, i even dated. at some point i had heard a saying once and took it as my own...."love is wanting the best for someone even if you have to put your own wants and needs aside". wow, that is a hard thing to do, but i wanted to really live by those words. my family would go down to see old friends and i would always make it a point to see "her". i can remember this one time my dad and i went down to paint a friends house, but i got a few hours to hang with "her". so when it came time for we to meet up with my dad, so we could drive back up home. i told "her" again that i would wait until the second she said, "I do". she laughed it off as me just joking around. but really i look back on that as THE time i should have not let "her" get away with laughing it off, but really try to make "her" understand that i was not joking around. from there our lives went into over-drive. i got kick out of the house soon there after and really wondered around. i really lost my way in life. but i still called, the only person i knew could always trust, when i had the chance. while i was living on my own i call "her" one day and she told me about something she had done. she had had sex! i was totally at a lose for words. i did not know what to do. i was hurt more than anything, because i thought she knew that that was something i wanted to share that with "her" when we got married. i really thought that one day that we would get married and have kids. well being dumb and really really stupid i went and had sex just to be like, "hey if you can do it i can too!" i look back at this moment in my life and i am like," wow that was totally stupid." but that is how i felt and at this point in my life i was high alot and not following Christ as i know i should have been. not to say that this is a good excuse, but that is where i was in life. life kept going on as it always does and at one point i even dated a friend of "hers". in my senior year of hight school she got engaged and that summer she got married. i really did know how to feel. i mean on the one hand i was happy for her. but on the other i really felt like i had lost out on someone great. i was also hurt and felt a lot of heart brokennes. at this time i had moved back in with my parents, but soon i was up to my old habits and was once again kick out. by the fall of 2003 i had joined the army and by feb i was gone to Ft. Benning for the "Ft. Benning camp for boys"...ie basic training.

ok ok so you must be like what heck does half of this have to do with love. let me tell you what i had to learned. i have learned to put my needs and wants behind me, learn that true love takes work, time, self sacrifice and it takes being broken of what i want. i had to learn to be alright with who she had become. through all the thing that have happened in both our live we are still great friends to this day. we both have made dumb moves. though through it all we have remained great friends, that just want the best for each other. even when it has been hard to put our own selfish wants aside we do because we know that in the end we are there for each other. what i am trying to say, is love is somthing that had taken me over 10 years to learn about and i am learning more with each relationship, friendship, and even in being hurt. love has shown me that no matter what, i have a friend that take me for who i and know that i will do the same. are there time when i want to go back so i can change things yes!! we cant though, so i keep moving on. trying to grown with each step. 

i told just other day a friend that love is "better open and honest than guarded and unrisked." that is really how i try to live. i love with reckless abandonment. not to say i dont guard my heart, but i do love long and hard. i think of how Jesus died for us...why? because he wanted the best for us!! He wanted us to know true love. He died knowing the pain it would bring Him, and still He died willingly. i know first hand what that means, because i would die for the love i have for this country and all of you back home. i hope that those of you who know me know that i do love each of you and i just want what is best in your life. this summer i had to relearn what it means to put my feelings aside. i liked a really good friend of mine, but when i told her she told me that she had  started dating someone else that everyday. timing seems to be a problem for me in my life. i be came jealous and mad. at some point i was like why am i mad. this really is dumb of me to be pissed off. she is happy and by my own words i should have listen to what i know is love, the selflessness in it. i was just being selfish and did not want to look past my own wants. i saw how dumb i was being and really  had to be like, "ok stupid. you need to start living what you say more!"  i ask her for forgiveness and was free to love again. 

i want to live life with the love Christ had for us. i mean really live it. i want people to say when i die that i love soo much that is totally overwhelmed them. i want to be known as someone who would give up his own life for a friend or just someone to sit and listen to what is on your heart. so if you see that i am not living like this, you all have the right to tell me that i am not. just be like, "hey buddy you might want to read your own blog about love." so to all of you who read this i want you to know that i am here for you in your time of need. i am here to show you love and want it really means to me. its time we let go of what WE want and start looking at what the people in our lives NEED.  John 13:34-35 "i give you a new commandment: that you love one another. just as i have love you, you should also love one another. by this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." this is the love i want. this is the love i want you all to see in me. i hope you all can see my heart in this. see the passion i have for love. and with that love comes the desire to give of myself. i want to know this love like i know it. i want people see this love in me. oh how i wish for this. i pray that Christ lives in me this way. i want to shine with His love. i long for the day when you all know this to be true in me.

i hope you can understand this. i know it i alot and some of my thoughts are totally out there. i know i tend to ramble on all about me, but hey this is my blog. if i want to put a picture of me in a speedo i will...but thankfully for you dont have a picture like that. jk! i miss you all and i hope you enjoy what i have writen.