Love

I've been worrying a lot. Wondering if I'll ever find someone who's in love with me, not just someone that I'm in love with. Seeing my friend be totally in love with his girlfriend and it changing him. I worry that I won't want to deal with it a few years into the marraige. I've been viewing it without the joy and affection that God has designed to accompany it. I've been dreading marrying, but dreading being single. I've become apprehensive of this thing called love. Not knowing if it exists. All I hear is love stories and perfect endings; I'm far too realistic to accept that idea. So then without realizing it I go to the other extreme; taking for granted there won't be affection and love.
This is WRONG. This is not how God designed it to be! But one of the major problems is our culture's use of the phrase being "in love." What is it to be in love? To have all those feelings for the other person and have them returned? That's an infatuation. That's affection. Neither lasts... But after all this time of saying love and Love are two different things, I propose that they are not. That they might possibly be the same thing... Loving someone so much that you do crazy things for them. So that you act. It's not simply a feeling: it's an action. It's what you'll do, and refrain doing for someone. A friend loves at all times... I want to marry my best friend. If infatuation comes along with it, MAJOR bonus. If it doesn't, love is plenty enough. But infatuation and affection seems to come along with love... And when love is before the affection, the affection becomes more realistic and wise. When you love someone, and they love you back, you can just smile knowing that they're there. You can smile doing things for them. You can smile when you are about to make a nasty comment, stop, and realize that you love them too much to hurt them with the poison of the tongue. THIS is true love. When it becomes more about the other person and less about yourself. When you can just rest in their presence knowing you can let all your walls down and trust them completely and that they will ALWAYS love you. Regardless of the petty or not so petty fights you get in. When trials come, you have an opportunity to grow closer to God. Because trials will come. Happy endings don't mean the road to the end is happy. But with your best friend at your side to have your back and walk through the rough stuff the end is glorious. When life on earth ends and His world begins, it is glorious. And you got to enjoy the ride with the love of your life and your best friend.
This makes me REALLY happy :)