What is Love?

Really, what is love? I feel like I need to break out into that song tonight because it expresses everything I want to say right now but don't know how.

In Bible study tonight I was hit with a few eye opening moments that relate to my situation right now.

1. Love keeps no records of wrongs. 1 Corinthians 13 speaks nothing but about love and what it is and isn't. Today, even before I was hit with that passage, I knew that I knew - that I love him. And that made matters worse. Because if truth be told, it would be so much easier to realize that I really did not love him at all - that it was nice, yes, but it was not love. Alas, that was not the case. So when I came home tonight and found a dozen roses on my door step with a card that simply read "I'm Sorry" I began to sob like a baby to the point of physically getting ill. Mainly because - I don't know how to respond. This man I love never tells me he is sorry - and he chooses this moment to express those powerful words. Words that heal. Words that comfort. Whether you're wrong or right - they are powerful. But how do you express to someone that - this is my heart you're dealing with and you've pierced it deeply. You cut me, you cut me deep (okay so thats an inside joke - even though its quite real).

2. I am a stepping stone for God. That is all I am and everything that I am all in one. Every moment of my life should be lived to further His kingdom. And so in looking at my current situation...I asked myself "Have you been a stepping stone in his life?" "Have you left a mark on his life for God that cannot be erased?" I pray I have. I pray that each day he would forget more and more the hurtful things of the past because of the love I poured into his life. I pray each day he would see himself more and more as the child of God than the negative thoughts he has of himself because of the postive things I try to instill in him. But if truth be told, I have no clue. I do know that I tried to love him with everything I was. I tried to give of myself with no holding back even though at moments I called myself a fool for doing so. At times I'm sure I've been guarded, for fear of getting hurt. But each day I tried to give a nugget of love that was lasting - hopefully I succeeded.

So what is love?
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resonding gong or clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have no love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. 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 records 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. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain; faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.