This chapter will take us on a journey into discovering who we are, how much we are capable of loving those around us. We will be taken through the importance of expressing our love to our partners and others around us for their maximization.
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Love is a very strong controversy. It has many definitions and words might just not be big enough to really sum up what it means. Love is a word that means the most ridiculous things to a diverse number of people. What I call love might not be what you will see as love. So the question is; what is love? What do we understand as love? What can we really get from having it in our life?
American Heritage Dictionary describes love as a deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition of attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying oneness.
In your own understanding and experience, would you totally agree with the definition above? It says love is “A feeling of intense desire and attraction toward a person with whom one is disposed to make a pair; the emotion of sex and romance.” Are all these true and applicable to everyday living according to God's ordinances?
Love makes living a great life hard at times. Love makes things complex and sometimes simpler than it really is. Love is a simple four letter word but can also be a complex emotion that's not totally understandable. There are people that have tried to share what they know as love as simple as they can, but it ends up turning into this huge emotion that consumes us and makes us what we are not most times.
Relationships are built out of this emotion called love. Friendships put its essence on the emotion. Family and friends have based their existence on this emotion. The Almighty trusts us to do things with relation to this emotion. Many have tried to run away from it and many ignore it only to end up in its clutch when they least expect it. Giants had fallen as a result of this emotion. The commoners had come into greatness when touched by this emotion.
Love has no goal when you let it into your life. It makes no promises. It just wants you to be yourself and let it take its course. It controls you and drives you. Many will say that love is made for us to go into marriage. Marriage is a compromise. It is a commitment that partners make. Love don’t always end up in marriage like when people see two people seemingly in love they’ll start asking when the wedding bells will ring.
There are people in fifty years old marriages that agreed to it just because it is convenient for them, arranged for them even. While there are people that get married for the sake of love only to hate each other two weeks into it. This is as a result of the misunderstanding of the word, love. So, what I am saying in essence is that, love makes and breaks. It is just a plan; how we read and interpret it is entirely up to us.
One of the Holy Books says love your neighbors as yourself. This is a tough world so I can say it is easier said than done. But with the right kind of guidance that comes from up above, it is achievable. Many people struggle with love and forgiveness. We are all bitter and we tend to see the worst in people when we are hurt. I always say that a happy person will make a happier congregation or gathering as you may want to call it.
When the spirit is helpless and sad, the body and mind will follow suit. It will then transcend into behaviors and personalities. Someone that loves himself will never see the hate in the eyes of someone else. She is happy and she sees the good in the worst kind of people. She closes her eyes to the iniquities of others. Her happiness sinks into those around her.
What a person chooses to do to others is born out of what she is feeling for that person. The urge to inflict harm on someone else is done out of what the perpetrator is feeling for that person. Not appreciating who we are and what we are will make us hostile to people around us. This is because we tend to take it out on them even if they are the only persons that make sense in our life.
The first step to a journey of making ourselves happier than we already are is to love who we are. You are thin, you are fat, you have loose teeth or live in penury, loving who you are and the potential in you will be a weapon to use to take you out of that zone.
Like in the movies, “Conversation with God”, Neil saw the worst in himself. He didn’t see past his nose and the trials that befell him but God showed him how to look further than that food from the trash. He braced himself and goodness followed him. He finds himself by doing what he loves doing; using his voice to make a difference. He didn’t see the potential in himself. He would never had thought he would stand in front of people and tell them about how wonderful life is when you let yourself go and be rid of all the hate and embrace love.
So, acceptance is an important step to loving your life. You have the tendency to give yourself to love and make yourself an instrument for others to learn about love. Your smile is the key that will soften the heart of that foul-mouthed neighbor. Your kind words is what the world will notice when you let your love grow in yourself and others. You can love. You can receive love and affection but you need to understand what it means to you and indulge in the understanding of it and live by it loyally and truly as your lord bids it.
Love what you are and others will join in your happiness. Happiness starts with when you sit back and say, “I am a very great woman. I am a success and I am made to be victorious.” It is a self-declaration of what we belief in. Don’t live a lie and hide under society and ignorance or all that imperfections you think you have. You won’t have to set your happiness gauge on the society and what it thinks of you, you will set it on how happy, kind and loving you are from within you. Show the society who you are.
Love is in you, share it. Make it what you are about and let the light of his teachings help your course.
