"What does being in love feel like?"I didn't know how to respond. How can you define something like that? I was speechless for a few moments, but then remembered something I had written about 2 years ago, back when I was wrestling with a definition for something as bizarre as Love. I showed it to her, hoping to give her a general picture of what I felt about it.
"Define
Love is being kind enough to give while being stern enough to take.
Love is the deepest trust for another person.
Love is putting your whole world in another person's hands and trusting them not to drop it, or even shake it too hard.
Love is red, blue, green, yellow, brown, white, black
Love is one hundred thousand different ways to show your concern
your devotion
your sense of humor
your sorrow
your fury
your sunshine
your moonlight
and best of all...
Love is all of these things
and countless more."
I told her love was cold. Not freezing, like winter, but... calming. Soothing. Drinking from a coconut on a hot, muggy day. I told her love felt like fire and ice. I told her love is trust, but it's so many leagues deeper than that.
She then asked me how I know the other person will come through for me and do the same for me. I took a second and thought again. For whatever reason, my mind brought up a passage in the Bible, in the 11th chapter of the Book of Hebrews:
So, I told her about that. I then took a second to think a bit deeper..."Now, Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."
I had always thought that in many cases, the words "Faith" and "Love" are interchangeable. After all, if I love someone, won't I always have faith in them? And if I have faith in an idea, doesn't that show a certain amount of love for a cause? In addition, many instances in the Bible where the word "hope" appears isn't always translated the ideal way. The Hope they speak of is concrete. It isn't up in the air-- it's looking forward to something you know is true and right. That is Faith. That is Love. So, if we reword that passage, look what we have:
"Now, Love is being rooted in what we know is true and certain of what is unable to be seen."Love and Faith are placing your heart within the soul of another and being absolutely certain they do the same for you. You know the other person feels the same way, because that is what Love is.
Yeah, the thing is that you really DON'T know if the other person will come through for you. Yeah, that can come around and tear your heart out your ass (been there, done that) but if you're too afraid of that to let yourself be in love, you'll miss out on it, and I think that's almost worse than the heart-out-of-ass bit.
ReplyDelete.....I had a comment but it got bumped cause of wordpress...ok here I go again.
ReplyDeleteI don't think anyone can really know what love feels like, no matter how many experiences they have had. I decided to look up love in the dictionary the definitions were the same, but one of them caught my eye the, differences one that I was able to find, "To need or require; benefit greatly from: Plants love sunlight." Plants 'love' sunlight because they need it to survive and live. Without it that plant would die and would never blossom or spread it's pollen, it's cycle would end, as would we if we did not have water, we need it to survive that is why we love it. Basically I do not think we can know love's feeling because it's is so different based on the situation, not to mention it's a very biased emotion, it can "play favorites" in a sense.
Nyssa, I beg to differ. You may think that, but that's what separates certainty from faith. I don't mean "know" as "be certain in", I mean it as "have faith in". You have every right to disagree, but your definition and mine of "love" seem to differ greatly. I personally believe that part of what constitutes love, in my eyes, is that faith. That 6th sense, almost, that instinct of being rooted in what we know is true and certain of that which is invisible.
ReplyDeleteBryan, I mean you no disrespect, but saying that no one can know what Love feels like is akin to saying everyone that is, will be, or has been in love is wrong. Frankly, I'm unsure if that judgment is fit to be made. My favorite word for Love is "agape"-- It's a Greek word. Greek has 2 other words for love, but of the 3, Agape is the strongest. It is always giving. It wants nothing in return. It's completely one-sided. The way you make it sound, Love is very selfish. You have every right to disagree, and I encourage you to, but I just don't perceive the purest manifestation of Love to be selfish in any way.