Love, even in its most abstract form, has endless definitions. I tried to search google regarding the topic. And to my amazement, in just a matter of 0.05 seconds, 574 million references to the question, “What is love?” were generated. And take note, this figure, bearing a looooong list of definitions, is from the net alone.
Then there are those definitions that come from text messages. As I then again “googled” it, I was rather shocked to know that there are about 6.5M SMS (short message service) on love. And these are only websites, huh. When you click on one site, you will be ushered to a huge treasure of love messages.
Now try to ask little children what love is and you would also get more than just a dose of hilarity (read: reality). Just take a look at the following:
· When my grandma got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandpa does it for her now all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That's love. -- Rebecca, age 8
· Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other. -- Kari, age 5
· Love is what makes you smile when you're tired. -- Terri, age 4
· Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday. -- Noelle, age 7
· Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well. -- Tommy, age 6
· During my piano recital, I was on stage and I was scared. I looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and smiling. He was the only one doing that. I wasn't scared anymore. -- Cindy, age 8
· "Love is like an avalanche where you have to run for your life." -- John, age 9
· "On the first date, they just tell each other lies, and that usually get them interested enough to go for a second date." -- Mike, 10
· "One of the people has freckles, and so he finds somebody else who has freckles too." -- Andrew, age 6
· "Don't say you love somebody and then change your mind ... Love isn't like picking what movie you want to watch." (Natalie, 9)
Well, this is what LOVE is in the eyes of little children. We haven’t explored yet the world of their ascendants... those who have, in one way or the other, have experienced the joys (or the absence of it) and the pains it may have caused them. And if I’m going to write it down here, for sure, there won’t be enough space to cover it all.
Then there’s one writer who artistically defined LOVE in this statement:
Shakespeare explained it through Romeo and Juliet.
Picasso through his paintings.
Lovers through flowers.
But no one beats my best friend’s style…
He explained it to me through the Cross.
Giving of one’s life for another, as exemplified by Christ, in this context is the highest form of love and the best explanation and concrete example there is.
But I am not going to talk about this kind of love, the agape or the selfless, unconditional love. Nor discuss the other kinds of love (eros, philial, caritas) and their corresponding hierarchy which the Greeks recognized over 2,500 years ago. What I am going to share is my own experience of that one facet of love that St. Paul defined.
St. Paul to the Corinthians says: "4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8Love never fails."
In today’s world where LOVE takes a whole lot of different connotations but apparently used as if in the same context with when you say: “Oh, I LOVE this book!” or say, “I LOVE this movie”, it is so difficult to tell what a person really means when s/he tells you, “I LOVE you”.
Thus, when I come to read (though for several times already) what the Apostle Paul says: love always PROTECTS, well, I simply do not understand what he actually means… until I experienced it myself.
As a young believer, and a single woman at that, I have made a covenant way back in college, along with some of my accountability partners, to adhere to 2 Corinthians 6:14-17. That is, not to be unequally yoked together with an unbeliever.
Surrounded with similar-minded peers, I didn’t have difficulty living out this vow. More so, getting hitched with someone was the least of my priorities back then. However, it has instilled in me deeply an attitude of considering not for a relationship anyone who is not in Christ. Until last year…
Right from the start, red flags were up. It didn’t even merit a second thought. The answer was, NO! There isn’t the slightest chance a relationship could prosper unless it is founded on the same Rock. And I was honest with myself about it. Honest enough to have been misunderstood. But to him who does not share the same mindset with me, no amount of explanation would ever suffice.
For the sake of a flourishing friendship (and so I thought back then), I let time took its course. In short, I didn’t close my door to the person. I thought, this person needs help, understanding and love more than anything else as only a person who has not experienced Calvary love would behave the way he does.
But he didn’t seem to get what I meant for he still continued to pursue… pursue to the extent that I felt I was being swayed already from my convictions and lured to doing exactly that which is contrary to my principles.
About five months in that dilemma, I came to a decision: I must back off. I may still have been holding on to that covenant I’ve made, but emotionally, I was losing grip. I honor God and love Him so much that I could not allow myself to get trapped simply because I didn’t take heed of the warning signs.
So the day before my birthday last year, I talked to him. I felt he deserved to know. I believed it would be unfair to him if I would just as if vanish into thin air without any explanation. And boy, the relief I felt that time, right after we talked, was incomparable. I felt as if a huge load had been lifted off my shoulders.
Despite my resolution to lessen, if not totally cut-off any contact with him, I still did find myself texting with him. And though we didn’t see each other anymore after that talk, the messages kept coming in… and getting more emotionally “intimate” than ever. And lines from him like, “you alone I get to tell this, etching, etching” and others to that effect, seemed to be the trend.
There were instances when the messages I’d been receiving from him became offensive already. But knowing where he’s coming from, I tried to rationalize that the kind of “environment” he’s acquainted with is exactly opposite with mine. That’s why, what’s maybe “just normal” for him is a taboo, or to be blunt about it, an assault to femininity for me. And this was despite the fact that I’d been telling him for the nth times about how I felt about it.
So by this time, it wasn’t only red flags that were up. Alarms began to ring oh so loudly as well, apparently reminding me of my commitment and love to God. I felt it was no longer wise for me to keep on communicating with this guy.
Incidentally, in one cool and beautiful April morning, a colleague approached me. Like a bomb that is just waiting to explode, it finally blew up. That time… and wham! I learned that this guy has a girlfriend. Yup! You’ve read it right. It is in the present tense. He HAS a girlfriend!
Honestly, I didn’t feel like confronting him when I learned about it, for again, I didn’t want to be misconstrued. I tried to reason out that, in the first place, we don’t have any commitment with each other and I didn’t have plans anyway of committing myself to him. Yet, I still felt that there is a need for him to know I KNEW that he had just been playing with me all along, right from the start.
And that night, just before he was able to fire up another of his string of lies, I casually brought up with him that which I’d just discovered. Interestingly, he tried to evade it. Well, as expected. And the very first word that came out from him was, “Sino?”. Di ko tuloy maiwasan ang mapangiti. I found him so funny when caught off-guard. What’s running in my mind then was, “ Tingnan mo nga naman ‘to. Sa dami siguro ng girlfriends, di na niya alam kung sinong tinutukoy ko”.
But because it was something that he could no longer deny, he eventually admitted it.
Now, you can just imagine what it would have been like had I made a commitment with this person.
Now, as I looked back to this experience, I can’t help but be amazed at just how LOVE protect me in so many ways. What a great lesson (though painful) to learn from! You see, for several times, I almost fell into the trap. All along, it was that fear and love for God that kept me from giving in. And consequently, it was the same love, God's amazing love, that protects me when I was about to make a compromise that I surely would only regret for the rest of my life.
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