Love Is

Love, what is it? Is it feeling, emotion, fleeting, lasting, life-changing, easy, hard, deep, shallow......

What is love?

Love is starry eyes and racing heart. Love is blushing cheeks, quivering stomach, sweaty palms and flashing smile. Love is whispered words and  a soft, gentle touch. Love is roses and chocolates and gifts and surprises. Love is a tender kiss, a warm embrace, a squeeze of the hand, a long look across the room. Love is intimacy in it's purest form - consuming, passionate, exhilarating.

Love is all of this... but love is more.

Love is listening to another's heart; it is hearing the hurt and pain and responding with love and empathy; it is saving the answers and passing the kleenex and giving understanding. Love is an unexpected lunch date at McDonald's; it is a cold drink delivered on a hot day. Love is daily. It is packing lunches and doing laundry and cooking food and washes dishes and doing it all over again. Love is giving space when the going is tough; it is shoulder rubs and back rubs and foot massages and saying "I care"; it is making a favorite dessert or writing a note or simply sitting together. It is doing the little things.

Love is all of this... but love is more.

Love is picking up dirty socks and hanging up wet towels and fixing the bed. Love is wiping up spills and throwing away stray wrappers and popcans and cleaning the trash out of the car.  Love is quietly putting things away - shoes and clothes and books and papers and the milk. Love is dropping my schedule and helping even if my to do list remains undone. Love is biting back angry words and saying "I'm sorry" when they slip out unchecked. Love is admitting I was wrong and not adding the word "But...". Love is sacrificing my wants for another's needs, it is putting myself in another's shoes.

Love is all of this.... but love is more.

Love is opening my mouth when I would rather keep it closed; it is speaking the hard truth when I would much rather remain silent. Love is showing my support even when I fear for my reputation. Love is laying down my own preferences and accepting another's ideas. Love is praising the strengths and not gossiping about the weaknesses. Love is confronting wrong even though I would rather shove it under the rug.

Love is all of this... but love is more.

Love is a commitment; it is choosing fact over feeling, the high road over the emotional one. Love is forever. Love doesn't quit, depending on the circumstances. Love gets up and serves - today, and tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. Love is a Choice.

Love is all of this.... and it is probably more. Love is not the least, it is the greatest. Choose love; choose life; choose the greatest.

"And now these three remain: Faith, Hope and Love. But the greatest of these is Love." I Cor 13:13 NIV

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I am taking up a challenge to write 500 words a day for two weeks. I don't plan to post all those words here but this was the first day of the challenge and I thought I would share it. If you're interested in joining, check it out here!