Love Actually

What does love really look like?

We are all pretty well versed in what the bible says about love. Not at all to say that we have a good understanding or deep involvement in the NATURE of love. I was taught as a child that God loved me. This idea and thought was reassuring and even comforting but it was not something I really understood. I knew my parents loved me, I knew my grandparents loved me but they are supposed to right?

I think back to the very first time I completely understood what Gods love for me looked like and felt like. It was when Javier Mendoza made CHOICE after CHOICE to LOVE me. Sure we have attractions to someone or we really like someone or even highly admire and respect someone, but that is not LOVING someone.

I Corinthians 13 says...Love is patient, LOVE is kind. Love does not envy, LOVE
does not boast, LOVE is not proud, LOVE is not rude, LOVE is not SELF-SEEKING,
LOVE is not easily angered, and LOVE keeps NO records of wrongs. LOVE does not
delight in evil but rejoices in the truth. Love ALWAYS protects, always trusts,
always hopes, always perseveres.

In reading this I discovered who I have really LOVED all these years, someone to whom I have been a PERFECT example of this LOVE ....MYSELF. It is not easy to write or to say but it is indeed true. Until I became an object of Javier's LOVE, remember I am not talking about his affection, like, or admiration, I am talking about his LOVE I had no clue what it looked like. I was so very blind to Gods LOVE because of it. I had not ever seen it before or at least never recognized it.

I had also been taught growing up that God knew me, and that every good and perfect gift comes from Him. I thought that God knew of me, but that he could not possibly KNOW me. Becoming a married couple does not mean you know your spouse or in most cases LOVE your spouse. You will think you LOVE him, and he will think he LOVES you, but from I Corinthians thirteens definition almost ZERO people actually LOVE someone other than themselves.

This is not to say that LOVE for others is unattainable, but to say REMEMBER what LOVE actually is. LOVE does not even come after the pretty dress in tucked away in a safe corner of your closet, and the tuxedo is a distant memory of years passed.Time is not the equivalent of LOVE. My husband has been the greatest demonstrating example in my life of this so called LOVE, and because of it I now know what it means to have and receive LOVE from God my creator.

LOVE really exists. LOVE does not just happen it is a CHOICE, a goal, a benchmark.The true nature of LOVE does not depend on the actions of the person receiving it. It is not a dream, or a far away place.

CHOOSE to LOVE those whom GOD put in your life.

- Danielle Mendoza