What Is Love
By Joanne Anderson
One day I was asked “What is love?” I sat and pondered long and hard as I tried unsuccessfully to describe the wonder and feeling of love. The words compassion, desire, hunger, emotion, forgiveness, self-sacrifice and a fiery passion deep inside a person sprang to my mind, but I thought love is so much more than that. It is the look in a mother’s eyes as she nurses her newborn child. It’s that person who gives up his day off to help a friend. It is a child’s laughter when playing. It is the younger person helping an elderly person across the busy street. It is seeing someone that has nothing and giving them all that you can. It is what brings a man and woman to each other for a lifetime. It is giving up something you need so you child can have that new toy he or she wants so desperately to be cool with their friends. It is the soldier that takes up his gun and fights to protect the people from a cruel and vicious tyrant that murders and tortures the people. It is that parent waiting up late to make sure their child is home safe, after an evening out. It is finding a home for a little orphaned puppy. It is this, and so much more I thought, so how do I describe love? Was it a deep feeling of passion, desire, compassion, and more? No, I described it like this: it was a man that did no wrong, a man that did everything he could for everyone. These people were not just his family, but the entire world. It was a man that when everyone turned their back on him; he still was willing to forgive them and die for them. When I describe love I simply say it is the life and story of Jesus and his sacrifice for all of us to give us the opportunity to see and be with God in heaven. Now that is love, my friend.
© January 27, 2008
