thoughts on love

I've been thinking about love lately. I mean, Why would God even create love? in my life, the more I have loved, the more i have been let down, and the more pain i endure.

This may be a bold statement, but i don't think a lot of us have really experienced real love, and i include myself in that. I am directing this more towards relationships, because that's where a lot of people mistake love for something else.

So many of us "fall in love". If you look at that statement very realistically, it's not possible to fall in love. Love is a choice, a commitment, and it's the only thing people can't force out of you, because it's a gift. But the truth is there's a lot of situations where we can't stop the feelings that we have for someone, and that's why we use the term "falling in love".

I think this whole idea of falling in love is a bond. Actually, maybe falling in bonding is a more appropriate translation. Because 1st Corinthians 13 describes love as a whole bunch of things; let's read it to be sure. We've all heard "love is patient, love is kind.." ect. So i am going to use the message's translation, because it's fresh, and down to earth.

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.
Love doesn't strut,
Doesn't have a swelled head,
Doesn't force itself on others,
Isn't always "me first,"
Doesn't fly off the handle,
Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn't revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.

And if you boil your relationships down, is this you? Is this how you're acting to your partner, your lover, your friend? Because in every relationship I've been in, even when i feel that overwhelming love, this hasn't been me. Which has showed me i wasn't loving at all.
See, it's easy to be in love, in that bond, but it's a completely new and different thing to actively love a person. God placed that beauty in us, the capacity to love, and it can beat ANYTHING. I've been bonded so many times, but God is really teaching me to love in this way.

My prayer for all of us is to engage this idea of love, and start genuinely loving people.