What is Love?

Love is defined as a deep, tender feeling of affection and solicitude towards a person such as that arising from kinship or a sense of oneness. Another definition of love says a feeling of intense desire and attraction towards a person with whom one is disposed to make a pair; the emotion of sex and romance.

However, even for myself, I didn't know what real love looked like or even what it was. Growing up, I was never taught the true ordeal about love. Everybody I came in contact with would show me the tainted way to love. So I grew up feeling that I had to be disloyal, standoffish, and not trust anyone. I had a huge wall up because my trust had been violated so many times. When I did let my guard down, I got hurt by boyfriends, parents, friends, cousins, and some neighbors. I grew up feeling like I had to do the men in before they hurt me. I had in my mind that I had to always had to defend myself 'cause nobody else would.

But today I know what true love is supposed to be, feel, and look like. First I had to learn to love myself before I could love someone else. I have corrected my wrong beliefs, ideas, attitude, patterns of thinking, mindset, and strong-held thinking about love. I have been reading this book titled Beyond Shattered Strongholds by Liberty Savard. This is from her book Influence the World.

There is a perfect list of the ways that we should always act towards others. This is a list of ways to act that shows us what to strive for so that we can be better.

Love never gives up:
*Love always sticks through thick and thin with a friend
*Love never turns its back on a family member in need
*Love never stops reaching out to strangers in need just because it backfired the last time

Love cares more for others than for self
*Love sits up all night in a hospital waiting room with a frightened parent
*Love gives surly teenagers a second chance
*Love gives always a favorite coat to a shivering stranger when it is snowing

Love doesn't want what it doesn't have
*Love doesn't covet other people's blessings
*Love isn't greedy
*Love appreciates everything

Love doesn't strut and doesn't have a swollen head
*Love is never proud and haughty
*Love humbly accepts whatever comes its way
*Love is a good listener

Love isn't always "me first"
*Love thinks of the other person's needs before it worries about its own
*Love gives room to those who push in front of it and it does it with a smile
*Love helps others to get ahead without concern for its own position

Love doesn't fly off the handle
*Love is patient
*Love overlooks other people's faults and differences
*Love always count to one hundred when someone is being difficult

Love doesn't keep score of the sins of others
*Love doesn't make lists and keep books on other people's actions
*Love always overlooks other people's faults
*Love never refuses to forgive just because someone has done the same thing thirty times before

Love never revels when others grovel
*Love never wants someone who doesn't make it to be uncomfortable
*Love never wants others to be embarrassed or humiliated
*Love never laughs at someone who finally gets "paid back"

Love takes pleasure in the flowering of the truth
*Love is always pleased when someone is acquitted of an accusation
*Love is protective of the one who confuses a falsehood
*Love rejoices with those who stand up for what is right

Love puts up with anything
*Love never stops being kind to someone who is mean and spiteful
*Love always acts with grace and mercy
*Love never reacts to another's bad attitude

Love trusts God always
*Love prays for God's will to be done in others with great blessing
*Love knows that God's word can always be trusted
*Love has trust and confidence in the goodness, wisdom, and power of God

Love always looks for the best
*Love always look for good in people that God seen in them
*Love always believes for the potential that God is working out in others
*Love always knows that God is working in every situation and every life

Love never looks back, but keeps going to the end
*Love never holds another's past actions against them
*Love tries to find something good in every person's actions
*Love will always walk hand in hand through hard times with others

Written by Jennifer Johnson