What is Love?

      What is love?  Do we truly understand the concept of love?  When we believe ourselves to be falling in love, the world is filled with rainbows, sunshine and lollipops!  The smile never leaves your face and thoughts of the one you have fallen for brings a warmth of joy throughout your body.  Then the euphoria ends.  Why?  Because the world intrudes and things begin to crumble. Again, Why?  I believe it is because every one of us has a different definition or understanding of love.  These definitions or understandings come from our past relationships.  Even the relationship that we witnessed between our parents, can affect how we believe love should be.  I grew up in a household that was not wealthy, but our parents provided for all our needs.  My mother and father loved each other deeply and passionately, that even when my father passed at the young age of 55, my mother remained in love with him until she passed 20 years later.  My mom and dad had Agape Love.  This is love at the highest level, a love rarely experienced by humans but what we are seeking.  Agape Love is the purest of all loves, it is completely unconditional, this is the love that is bestowed upon us from God. 

     How do we find Agape Love?  I pray and spend time with God in His Word.  1 Corinthians 13 is considered the chapter in the Bible that defines love.  I believe it defines Agape Love.  For it states; 

"Love is patient, love is kind.  It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  

Love 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."  ~ 1 Corinthians 13:4-9

     My understanding of love, especially agape love, is that when you have found that special one that God brings into your life, you want to be able to spend time with them.  No matter how you spend that time, whether face-time, on the phone, texting, and actually being able to spend a few days with them.  To respond when they text me.  To comfort them and not hurt them.  To not make them feel guilty in any way, for love does not do that.  I watched my dad feel sadness when my mother went out of town for a retreat one weekend.  He was staring out the window and I asked him what was wrong, and he said "I miss my wife."  You see, my mother was use to my dad going on his hunting trips and other little excursions, but he, well he always knew that she was home waiting for him, and having her gone, well that was something he rarely experienced. I watched my mother bring my father his lunch and kiss him goodbye and tell him she loved him as he would go off to work.  The times that they would look at each other across the room and not see anyone else but each other.  Did they fight and have disagreements, absolutely.  However, he never gave her the silent treatment or just ignored her.  Sometimes they would just argue it out until the end, or I would hear his or her tone change to make him or her understand and then it would be over and they would just talk.  The ultimate expression of their love that one could feel and experience was when they danced together.  He would hold her as if she were the most precious gift that was in his arms.  They floated across the floor as one and she would cradle within his arms knowing she was protected from all the world.  Their love story was one that I chased after within my life.  I thought I had found it and I have two failed marriages that, though they were not the Agape Love, they were special loves were God helped to mold me and grow me.  After my second divorce, I sought after Agape Love, but it was in all the wrong places and with wrong men.  After a year of chasing after what I believed I needed to define my life, which was having a man in it and allowing myself to be treated with disrespect, I soon realized that this is not for me, but mostly this was not what God wanted for me.  For I found Agape Love, it was there all the time.  God was pouring His Agape Love over me every day and continues to do so.  Am I in love, yes!  I am in love with God, my father, Jesus, His son and the Holy Spirit. 

  This past month has not been a very good month for me.  I have been in pain and my heart was broken.  One friend, told me that I should not be wasting time feeling sorrow.  That hurt even more.  I believe that without allowing the heart to break and then asking Jesus to heal and mend it, then one remains in the brokenness and this allows the devil to enter in and take control.  For each day, Jesus makes me stronger and with Him, my heart is broken no longer.   

Gift Eternal

Originally written this day, Sunday, February 17, 2019

Updated on this day, Wednesday April 17, 2019

By: Darla E. Palombia

Emotionally scarred

My heart once again deeply bruised

I thought this time

Surely, I could not lose.

But once again

The interest faded away

The tone of his words

Began changing each day.

No response

As it happened once before.

My heart once opened

Begins to shut and lock its door.

Time heals a broken heart

Heard in the words of many a song.

But a heart that has been hurt too many times

Grows weary and forlorn.

For a moment in time

I allowed myself to fall (in love)

Not realizing that this would hurt

Like none other before.

Pain and sorrow

Now lives where joy once resided.

Tears flow

As realization is provided.

Trust destroyed

Not only in mankind

But in the Maker of this World

Whom I thought

Would never leave me behind.

But behind He left me.

Broken once again

Lost and abandoned

I believed He

Was my Forever Friend.

But deep in my heart, As He heals my pain, the Truth is revealed

God has not forsaken me,

As though the world would say.

For even in this pain

He is here, holding me in His arms,

Giving strength to face each day.

The devil will not

Deceive me into believing

That God left me on my own.

For this pain is just another

Challenge that I must face.

But I rest in the knowledge that God is here

And with Him, I will win the race.

For though I had given my heart

To one who now is not interested in the gift.

There will come the one,

Whom God will bring into my life

For he will be the one,

The gift of love to claim as his.

He will cherish it to the end of time

The flame of love will continue to burn

For God’s eternal gift

Together, our hearts will yearn.

For our two hearts will be joined

With Jesus in the center.

Love will grow and blossom

Forever and ever.

 May everyone be Blessed by God's Agape Love!