So I don't really know how to start this blog without being cheesy. I know that I want to tell you kids about love and what it really is, but even that sounds lame. I could ask you what love is, but that sounds like a miserable Sunday School lesson. I could even name some dramatic stories of love, but that's too emotional.
But I've seen love misunderstood too many times for me to not write this blog entry. Because "love is or it ain't." People often see other things as love when it's really just attraction or selfish ambitions.
Love isn't an emotion, it's not a flowing, breathless feeling, it's not an obsession with the other person. It's not an enchantment with how perfect the other person is. It's not found in the fact that this person has every single thing you've been looking for. Love isn't believing this person will entirely satisfy you, because people are incapable of doing such. Love isn't staying with someone who harms you. Love isn't given just because someone loves you back.
Instead, love is an action, it's a thing that remains when feelings change, and surpasses merely being obsessed with someone, but instead putting their well being above all else. You might realize that there are things about their past that you wish weren't there or flaws found in who they are, yet you will forgive them and accept them regardless. Perhaps you find yourself loving someone completely different than who you'd thought you'd end up loving, but that doesn't change love. Love isn't believing this person will entirely satisfy you, but instead you trying to the best of your ability to satisfy this person and then pointing them to the One who can do the things you cannot. Love sometimes means loving from a distance and letting people go. But most of all, love is given when it is incapable of being given in return.
I've seen the absence of love when people claim to have love at first sight. That's not love, that's attraction, and while that often precedes love, that ain't love. Love isn't obsession, because I can know every fact about Barack Obama and think about him constantly, but that doesn't mean I love him. Love isn't staying with someone who is hurting you, that's just being insecure, and if someone continues to abuse you physically or emotionally, you need to love at a distance.
Yet I've seen abundant love when my parents love me even though they're upset that I totaled their car. Love is shown when a friend of mine fought hard to stay a virgin until her wedding night with desperately wanting her future husband to do the same, yet found out that her fiancee hadn't waited, yet she looks past his mistakes simply because she loves him. I see love when I watch my dad give up his Saturdays to make sure my brother whose disability prevents him from communicating have fun, even though Matthew can never tell him "I love you, Daddy." I heard about love when I learned that four of the victims in the recent Aurora shooting were boyfriends protecting their girlfriends from death.
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Thursday, August 9, 2012
Lessons Learned Part One
Five years may not seem like a significant amount of time to someone who's 70, 55, or even 40. But if your life consists of just 20 years like mine does, it's a pretty big chunk of time.
The years of ages 15, 16, 17, 18, and 19 were years chock full of life lessons. I cried from the consequences of my own mistakes, held my friends as they wept about theirs, and listened to the multiple warnings of my mother that I could "ruin my life in five minutes, so don't do it." I learned how fun it is to stay up late and giggle with your best girlfriends, put on make-up without looking like a clown, and how to relate to every single Taylor Swift song. I had a classmate commit suicide.
Lately I've been wishing that I could go back to the past five years and tell myself and my friends the lessons that I've learned now. There would have been far less man-hating sessions, girl drama, and indulging in chocolate chip cookies because I had an awful day and I needed some endorphins!
If I could go back in time, I'd tell myself and all of my friends in high school these things.
Myself at 15!
1. No one is better than you, but you are better than nobody. I believe that we are all created by God and that He loved us enough to die for each one of us. We all have the same Maker, who doesn't acknowledge the difference between poor or rich, popular or unliked. When I was fifteen, I was quite shy in high school because I was scared that no one liked me. I felt like everyone else was better than me, so I was often scared of talking to people. Since I didn't have a Coach purse like the pretty blonde cheerleader, a football player boyfriend, or wear a lot of makeup, I put myself at a lower category than others. I remember eating alone at lunch for the first month of my freshman year just because I didn't think I was worthy to talk to people.
I also felt like I was better than some people. I remember stating in class once that I thought that people who wore all black had mental problems, or being arrogant towards a girl who was promiscuous. No one is better than you, sure, but you are on the same level of everyone else.
When I started to believe that I had value and everyone else had the same value I had because of God, that's when I got out of my shell and changed completely. Years later at graduation, I was voted "Class Friendliest" by my peers. And it was all because that I realized, to quote Oklahoma, "I ain't better than nobody, but I'll be darned (she says something else here, but you get my drift) if I ain't just as good!"
2. Boys aren't worth the hassle. Trying to attract a boy for my friends and I when we were 17 meant waking up 1 1/2, sometimes 2 hours before we had to leave to do our hair, make-up, find a cute outfit, and shower before heading to school..at 7:20 AM. We would go jogging 45 minutes four times a week, count calories and eat tiny lunches just to keep those pounds off. Know how many dates I went on in high school? Zero.
Trying to hold down a boyfriend often meant letting him say terrible things to you and about you, putting up with drama from his ex-girlfriends and jealous friends, and doing sexual things with him you didn't want to do. I had so many friends who gave up their virginity just to keep some idiot boyfriend for three more weeks, months, whatever. They all got dumped afterword. It really broke my heart.
Ladies, if you have to go crazy trying to attract a boyfriend, it's not worth it!!! Take care of yourself, sure, but for Pete's sake, don't go as crazy as society expects us to! I didn't go on my first date until I was 18 with a guy I met at my college, and that was when I stopped caring so much about my appearance. Ironic, eh? As I learned from experience, if you have to put up with crap to hold down a boyfriend, LET HIM LOOSE!! You don't need to be treated like a piece of dirt or giving away your virginity to some guy who can get it from any girl who's available. As I also learned from experience, when the right one comes along whenever he does, he will love you for who you are even when you're PMSing, won't pressure you for sex, and will think you're beautiful even in no make-up and a t-shirt :) It sounds silly, but girl, I LIVED this one and it's true!
I'm not quite done with my reminiscing just yet, but now it's time to meet my boyfriend for lunch and head down to my volunteer job at FSU's international student center. But don't you worry. I have quite a bit to talk about what I learned those five years.
The years of ages 15, 16, 17, 18, and 19 were years chock full of life lessons. I cried from the consequences of my own mistakes, held my friends as they wept about theirs, and listened to the multiple warnings of my mother that I could "ruin my life in five minutes, so don't do it." I learned how fun it is to stay up late and giggle with your best girlfriends, put on make-up without looking like a clown, and how to relate to every single Taylor Swift song. I had a classmate commit suicide.
Lately I've been wishing that I could go back to the past five years and tell myself and my friends the lessons that I've learned now. There would have been far less man-hating sessions, girl drama, and indulging in chocolate chip cookies because I had an awful day and I needed some endorphins!
If I could go back in time, I'd tell myself and all of my friends in high school these things.
Myself at 15!
1. No one is better than you, but you are better than nobody. I believe that we are all created by God and that He loved us enough to die for each one of us. We all have the same Maker, who doesn't acknowledge the difference between poor or rich, popular or unliked. When I was fifteen, I was quite shy in high school because I was scared that no one liked me. I felt like everyone else was better than me, so I was often scared of talking to people. Since I didn't have a Coach purse like the pretty blonde cheerleader, a football player boyfriend, or wear a lot of makeup, I put myself at a lower category than others. I remember eating alone at lunch for the first month of my freshman year just because I didn't think I was worthy to talk to people.
I also felt like I was better than some people. I remember stating in class once that I thought that people who wore all black had mental problems, or being arrogant towards a girl who was promiscuous. No one is better than you, sure, but you are on the same level of everyone else.
When I started to believe that I had value and everyone else had the same value I had because of God, that's when I got out of my shell and changed completely. Years later at graduation, I was voted "Class Friendliest" by my peers. And it was all because that I realized, to quote Oklahoma, "I ain't better than nobody, but I'll be darned (she says something else here, but you get my drift) if I ain't just as good!"
2. Boys aren't worth the hassle. Trying to attract a boy for my friends and I when we were 17 meant waking up 1 1/2, sometimes 2 hours before we had to leave to do our hair, make-up, find a cute outfit, and shower before heading to school..at 7:20 AM. We would go jogging 45 minutes four times a week, count calories and eat tiny lunches just to keep those pounds off. Know how many dates I went on in high school? Zero.
Trying to hold down a boyfriend often meant letting him say terrible things to you and about you, putting up with drama from his ex-girlfriends and jealous friends, and doing sexual things with him you didn't want to do. I had so many friends who gave up their virginity just to keep some idiot boyfriend for three more weeks, months, whatever. They all got dumped afterword. It really broke my heart.
Ladies, if you have to go crazy trying to attract a boyfriend, it's not worth it!!! Take care of yourself, sure, but for Pete's sake, don't go as crazy as society expects us to! I didn't go on my first date until I was 18 with a guy I met at my college, and that was when I stopped caring so much about my appearance. Ironic, eh? As I learned from experience, if you have to put up with crap to hold down a boyfriend, LET HIM LOOSE!! You don't need to be treated like a piece of dirt or giving away your virginity to some guy who can get it from any girl who's available. As I also learned from experience, when the right one comes along whenever he does, he will love you for who you are even when you're PMSing, won't pressure you for sex, and will think you're beautiful even in no make-up and a t-shirt :) It sounds silly, but girl, I LIVED this one and it's true!
I'm not quite done with my reminiscing just yet, but now it's time to meet my boyfriend for lunch and head down to my volunteer job at FSU's international student center. But don't you worry. I have quite a bit to talk about what I learned those five years.
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