FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE

I am currently reading The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman. It is an enlightening book. Although it is majorly written for married people, I think everyone should read it. The book offers great insight into the psychology of love and the different ways in which people give and receive love. This is not a book review so that's all I am going to say about the book. It got me thinking though, why would anyone write a whole book to help people form lasting relationships? Turns out, Gary is not the only one who thought that love was important enough to occupy a whole book. According to Professor Google, there are over 129 million different books on love. And that is just an estimate. Books aside, almost all songs, poems, dramas, movies, and even art pieces ever created have a love angle.

Love. What is love? Some say that it is a deep feeling of affection towards someone or something. If you ask me, it is more... more than a feeling. It is a force. It is what makes the world go round. It's so deep and vast that it is unfathomable... indescribable. It moves us beyond our limits. Our minds can never fully comprehend love and our hearts can never fully hold its weight. To help our feeble hearts and minds...we try to dilute it. We throw the word "love" around like it's worthless. We equate it to lust and use it to manipulate the world around us into giving us what we want. We know what the human heart craves, so we replicate it. We know that giving and showing love leaves us unarmed and vulnerable so we fabricate our own version of love and leave our hearts guarded and our walls up high. This "love" we have created for ourselves is transactional. It poses the question, "What do I stand to gain? Is this good for me?" It looks inwards first. We all do that, whether we realize it or not. From a broken world, emerges a broken view of love. We are broken people, with broken hearts, it only makes sense that our way of love, though with pure intentions, is also broken.

That is not to say that we are incapable of giving and receiving love. It's in our nature. We all desire to be loved and we all have someone or something that we love so deeply that their absence leaves us distraught. Sometimes we try to hide it, so we don't seem weak. However, we cannot hide from ourselves. When all else is quiet, when we tap into our inner selves, there is something, someone that our hearts beat for, and that is love.

Whoever or whatever the object of your love is, you always want them close. You want them to be safe, to be happy. You are willing to forego your own needs to meet theirs. And even when they are not perfect, you are still overwhelmed with compassion. When they hurt...you hurt too. You are willing to do whatever to put a smile back on their face, but what happens when you can't? What happens when you see them hurting and there's nothing you can do to make it go away? Most of us have felt that at some point in our lives, that feeling of helplessness... when you think to yourself, "How can I be this useless?"

Over the past few weeks, I have felt that way countless times. It's a feeling I've grown to loathe. It reminds me of my weakness...how limited I am. It goes against all my mantras and self-motivation quotes. When what I want to hear is, "the world is your dance floor...you can be anything you want to be..." that voice goes," no...the world is not your dance floor...and there's very little you have control over!" Harsh...but true. We have all these mantras and slogans, and we desperately want them to be true...but are they really?

"I choose happiness," we say as if sadness is a choice too. I have nothing against mantras, in fact, I have a few of my own. We need positivity... something worth believing... it's what we have to do if we are going to get through life day to day. Life is beautiful...it is a miracle in itself, but it is not without hardship. No one needs to be told that. All of us have experienced pain, in different forms and degrees, but pain regardless. It is during those dark times, that we need love most. We need it to at least light up a corridor if not the whole house. We need it to give us a glimmer of hope, to assure us that everything is going to be alright. Love does not cure sorrow but it helps us up when our feet are feeble, and carries us when we can't take a step.

So, if like me, you ever feel helpless, unable to protect the ones you love from pain and hurt, remember to focus on what you can do. You can't take away the pain, but you can wipe away the tears. If you can't put the smile back on their face, sit and share in their pain. In looking inward and focusing on all that we can't do, we miss out on opportunities to let love blossom. Such is the complexity of love, it shines in the good times and in the bad times, in sickness and in health.

In a world so broken and unpredictable, love is the hope we hold on to. Although human love is by nature fickle, it is worth giving. We need to move beyond our insecurities and feelings of insufficiency. If we are going to love, we are going to have to be brave. Bravery is not having it all figured out, it is stepping into the unknown with whatever is in your hand and hoping... trusting, that it will carry you through. Love is worth pursuing even when we risk remaining unarmed and defenceless.

Our system of love might be broken, but that doesn't mean it is powerless. We have seen it drive people to do the unimaginable, both in a positive and negative sense. If a broken system of love could be so powerful, now imagine perfect love...boundless...limitless...love that is patient and kind, that keeps no record of wrongs, a love that never fails. It is hard to imagine it, leave alone believe that it exists and is available to us now, right this moment.

You and I are loved unconditionally regardless of the fact that we are deeply flawed. There is nothing we can ever do to change that. No matter how far we run, this love constantly pursues us. This love is senseless...reckless...It is so big that we can never wrap our minds around it. It is not on us to understand it, ours is to receive it and let it mend what has been broken.

Unless we receive this love, we can never truly love. We love because He first loved us. The love we give is just but a glimmer of what we have received. So, for better or worse, if there's anything worth clinging to, it is He who by very nature IS Love. Gary Chapman's book is great...but there's one that tells a greater love story. A love story that remains relevant throughout human history and whose main character is love itself. The Bible is a collection of 66 love letters written for you and me. Maybe the world would be a better place if we all discovered this perfect love.