seraphina

from sera's blog, 05 may 2006, here.
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according to the oxford dictionary:

love (n)
1. A deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition of attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying oneness.

2. A feeling of intense desire and attraction toward a person with whom one is disposed to make a pair; the emotion of sex and romance.

3. Sexual passion. Sexual intercourse. A love affair.

love...lust...how then would you know the difference...

on the surface, the answer to the question seems glaringly simple.
instinctively, as human beings. we all yearn for love.
for that warm fuzzy feeling you get when you are together, the way you light up at the sound of the persons voice and the fire of joy that burns within you.
the care, the constant attention..of knowing that someone out there is thinking about you.

but really, is there all there is to it?

at sunday school, i learnt, that god is love. that jesus is love.

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud./It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs./Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth./It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres./Love never fails.
1cor 13:4-8

not that i am trying to be holy, but to me, this is what love is. difficult as it may seem to live up to all the expectations, it encompasses all that i can ask for and all that i could give.

love has become superficial and merely a physical attraction. all we remember are the happy moments in pictures. but we forget the pain and tears and work that takes us from one smile to the next. now love lasts for as long as there is laughter and we blame its absence for our tears. thats not love. its infatuation that has deluded you into believing that you are in love.

i say love is there through both the sun and rain, and its presence never stronger than when we feel that its gone. we are simply so caught up in ourselves and the pain and sorrow that we are just looking at the door that has closed and ignoring the glaring light that is shining in from that open window.

holding on..hoping and believing even when everything seems impossible- thats what love is.
to trust even though everyone has turned away, cowering in fear- thats what love is.
to give of all of yourself...all that you have and still be willing to offer more. never once expecting anything in return- thats what love is.

we always say that love is not enough.
it is.
as long as you first understand the meaning of pain, scarifice, compromise and understanding.
i dont deny that love is a beautiful thing.
but even the most gorgeous of paintings took years of hard struggle to reach completion and perfection.