What is Love (Baby don't hurt me)...

The Lord started talking to me about LOVE this morning, & He was adamant that I write about what He was saying to me. He said, "Do we fall in love with how someone makes us feel or do we fall in love with a person?" Women tend to fall in love with how someone makes them feel, while men fall in love with who a woman is. Women tend to run on feelings & emotions while men understand that love is not just a feeling, its a choice demonstrated by action. Men understand that working & providing for his family is LOVE. LOVE is a choice, choosing to LOVE someone even when its hard, even when that person seems unlovable, even when they don't make me feel how I want to feel. Why is it another persons responsibility to make me feel anything? Why is my worth found in another person? That is the real question. The rest is just a symptom of a bigger problem. We watch television & movies that portray a false sense of what LOVE is supposed to look like; its all a fantasy of what someone else wants you to think love is, not what it really is. LOVE is not romance, flowers, candy, a glass slipper, a carriage ride through the snow, etc. These are all precious things but they are not LOVE's rule, they are the exception. Women require more & more proof of how their man feels about them, but she fails to recognize what he is already doing. What does she consider proof? Will she ever find enough evidence that he loves her, or will she keep needing more & more? We don't always see the truth but rather what we want to see. We fail to recognize LOVE because it really is a foreign concept. Perhaps we then fail to accept LOVE because we do not know what LOVE looks like.

Maybe these are some of the reasons that satan was easily able to deceive the woman rather than the man. A snake made Eve feel the way she wanted to feel by appealing to her emotions. There ain't no way that Adam was gonna talk to a snake, but he would listen to his wife, whom he was one-flesh.

In the beginning of a relationship men are better at making a woman feel the way she wants to feel but this fades away. A woman is better at showing her love early in the relationship but this too fades away. When a man fails to make a woman feel the way she wants to feel, she gets angry, hurt, & upset, & tends to withhold the herself from him. She may seek divorce because he isn't making her feel the way he once did so she is trying to "scare" him into making an effort & making her feel the way she wants to feel. The divorce likely isn't because she stopped loving him, she is trying to get his attention because maybe nothing else has worked. And instead of fighting for her, he concedes & lets her have what she wants because he loves her so much. I think that once a man falls in love with a woman & decides to marry her, he never stops loving her. Woman can fall in & out of love often actually, based on how a man makes her feel. Which begs the question, do we LOVE because of how a person makes us feel or because we just LOVE them? Men understand the assignment better than women do.

My dad didn't know how to LOVE so this is not always true. I did not know that men could be kind until I met my husband. I have been very unlovable for most of our marriage. I was awful, cruel, toxic, confusing, crazy, chaotic, emotional, yet he still loved me. I probably did everything I could possibly do to prove that he really didn't love me, but he just kept proving that he did -and I knew that I did not deserve it. I thought loved had to be earned. I still struggle with LOVE, but God is working on me constantly, teaching me. He has taught me that LOVE is a choice whether it is earned, felt, or reciprocated. Jesus chose to show His love even to those who would never reciprocate - and we could never earn what He did for us.

God's LOVE is an action. He chooses to LOVE us & chose to show it by sending His own Son to be a sacrifice for humanity. Mans default fate following this life is eternity in hell because of the sin of Eve & Adam in the garden. We are all set for a destination of hellfire & damnation. We could never be good enough, on our best behavior enough, do enough "good deeds," because none of us is good, no not one, but God alone (Mark 10:18). Jesus chose to show His LOVE by coming to earth & dying so that we have a very simple way out of hell, & to God & eternal life with Him in heaven. Jesus did not feel like being tortured & murdered, but His choice to LOVE & save us was much bigger than any feeling. He KNEW that He was coming here to experience torture & death, yet He did it anyway. Jesus took the punishment that we rightly deserve. That is grace!

Sometimes LOVE is easy, but its usually not. It is much easier to harden our hearts so that we feel nothing except what we want to feel. what we CHOOSE to feel. Everything, everything, everything, including & especially LOVE, is a choice. I am so blessed to still have that husband that showed me what love really looks like, & how Jesus loves. The Lord is teaching me how to accept LOVE as well as show it! I have 3 wonderful sons who are kind & know how to LOVE! They LOVE like their dad & like Jesus!