Love

Love, I can honestly say I did not have any idea what this word truly meant or entailed for most of my younger years in  life. I had and still do experience being loved and loving others, but for 29 years of my life I had been told often by my abuser that he loved me and that is why he behaved the way he did, all out of true love for me.  As often as I would dispute this thinking and try to explain, that what I knew of love, was NOT what he was exhibiting, I was told I was totally crazy.

In my mid twenties, after attending a non-denominational church regularly and finally obtaining my own Bible I started to read, literally from the first page on, I wanted to understand what the Bible was all about and the only way that I knew to learn something was to get a book on it and start reading from the first page, cover to cover.

One day it hit me like the brightest light in the darkest place imaginable, that true Love was GOD, so now I had a base to work from, with me believing God is LOVE, I asked myself, what are His attributes? Again, I dove deep into the Bible and started reading and  writing it all down and this is some of what I found;

Love is patient, Love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, Love is not easily angered, Love keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth, Love always hopes, Love always perseveres. Love never fails!

This was now my means that I measured if I was acting IN LOVE and truly BEING LOVED. If people were in my life that were delighting in evil, lying regularly, rude, boasting of their accomplishments, self-seeking and easily angered then I knew that it wasn’t the kind of LOVE that I was interested in. If I was anxious and not patient, envious, keeping records of wrongs, not hopeful and rude etc. then I knew that it wasn’t God using me in that persons’ life, and I was not acting in Love and I needed to seek Gods help in correcting my behavior.

The HUGE mountain in front of me was that I was married to a man that had no intentions of changing, hearing or working with me in changing his self defeating behavior of abuse, and his ridiculous idea of love, that consisted of lies, harm to others and deceit (to just name a few).

My marriage and this abuse was truthfully a large driving factor in developing my love relationship with the Lord, I needed Him to show me His LOVE, and a way out of my marriage (if things weren’t going to change) or how to not give up and succumb to the feelings of hopelessness. I wish I could tell you this only took a few days or a couple of months, but IT DID NOT, it took over two decades! But what I quickly discovered was that God does not only use our spouse to show us Love, He uses other people and circumstances to reveal His love to us. Now I was on a mission to rest in Him and watch to see where He was working and revealing Himself through to me and enjoy the good and learn from the not so good.

My children and my parents were, and still are, used by God to show me His Love, and throughout the years God has shown me His love various ways every day in all sorts of experiences and circumstances and for that I am whole and complete! I am honored when He uses me to show Himself (Love) to others, in all sorts of various ways, as well.

Ideally, a marriage would be based on Love, it would grow, and develop stronger over the years, but that is not always the case and though it sounds so easy to just leave or abandon a relationship that was loveless, for me that opportunity did not take place for many years, but in those years I learned so much about myself and what TRUE LOVE really consisted of.

The point of my blog post today is to encourage anyone that is looking for TRUE LOVE, to look no further than the Word of God and read the greatest love letter ever written, where the Author is still alive and working today and waiting and wanting to shower you with a love that He created for you to enjoy and participate in, that will be totally fulfilling! Simply take a moment and ask God to reveal Himself to you today and keep a watchful eye out, you will not be disappointed!

xo-Suzie