Love is deeply personal and even more individualized. We all love differently, show it differently, prefer how we receive love differently. It is our own. It is ours before it is ever anyone else’s. But love is not always a choice. Sometimes it chooses us. Love sees a part of us tucked in the quietest deepest corners of another and begins its longing. Then we choose whether we will listen and obey or ignore and fight the overwhelming pull. The pull of familiarity that part of us sees in that stranger in the coffee shop. The pull that stretches your hand across the small table to take theirs and causes a smile from within yourself you’ve never known. Love somehow defines us. Changes us. Helps us. Morphs us into the humans we were always meant to be. Love is healing and is that one thing we never knew we were looking for.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.