Love?

What is a person's true definition of love? How do you know when you're in love with someone really? How is love expressed? Is love an emotion, a feel or an expression? How old or mature must you be in order to know what love is?


According to Webster's dictionary, love is "a strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal tides; attraction based on sexual desire; affection based on admiration, benevolence or common interests." But to me love starts with self. Self love is the greatest love of all time. How can you know where to start or how to love if you sure as hell can't love yourself. It took me years to discover the under lying love I have for myself. Growing up I have low self esteem. I was always the bigger girl in the class but smart. I had true friends that appreciated me for who I was but I never saw myself as such. Almost everyday when I was younger (even now) my father told me how beautiful I was (am), I would just smile and laugh. How did I know what love was?

My heart was first hurt and crushed at the age of 16 from my high school sweetheart. I loved that man all the way up to the current age of 30. For years we went back and forth and played with the thoughts of a future, children and marriage but it never happened. Last time I saw him, I looked into his eyes and fell right out of love with him. I first knew I was in love with him when I couldn't stand not looking into his eyes. His eyes told a story that had music in my head that I needed to hear. He had the most beautiful eyes a girl could fall in love with. Long eye lashes, light brown and deep. When he cheated on me in high school, I was crushed. I was walking around with a heavy burden on my shoulders and I didn't know how to shake it off. That was something I have never felt before him. It was only him who could change my feelings. That was my first time ever knowing how it feels to be love's fool. Now you may see that as "young love" but how is that so when many people have babies at that age, get married and stay together and make life time commitments. Granted a young girl's body isn't mature but her mind is. Love isn't complicated or complex, the people who say it or believe it makes it so.

Since my high school sweetheart, I've been in true love two other times. Each time I knew it was a deeper love than a like-love relationship. To me love is a combination of actions, emotions and commitment. I don't play around with that word unless I really mean it. When I love, I love hard and long. I'm committed to let that person know each and every day that I love them and I want them to see and feel that. Love is something that is felt and unconditional. I can't put restrictions how I should show that love. Love is affection expressed through actions and words. You can tell a person how much you love them until you show it. Love is having no doubt, fears or expectations. Love is not being able to go one day without talking or seeing that person regardless of how you feel about them or that argument y'all had the other day. Love is standing by that person right or wrong, having dedication and faith that it'll work out no matter what. Most importantly, love is blind. Love is meant to be felt and appreciated not neglected.

It took me years to truly and appreciate love for who and what it is. It's still a very sensitive subject for me because I need the other person to know love to me is like marriage. Once you love someone, those feelings never go away. You can fall out of love with that person but an admiration will always be there. No matter who comes before or after you, love is respect. Maybe I'm a hopeless romantic that believes in an unwritten language between two people but I only know how to read, write and speak it. One of these days God will bless me with a man whom reflects me. A true mirror of my reflection. Until then, my love is on reserve, hold, on lock down. Love is meant to be shown, which it will be one day again for me....

Hello God, can you hear me??

"Prayer is easy, keeping the faith is hard."

I'm staring at the black keys on my laptop, a million and one thoughts running through my head but I'm overwhelmed with so much hope. Hope doesn't come easy now a days since it's been slowly rationed out.  Don't get me wrong, there is a different between hope and faith. According to the Dictionary, hope is "the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best.", while faith is defined as "confidence or trust in a person or thing."  You see the difference? Hope is a feeling or desire while faith is confidence!

It took me about two years to get confident in God. I've always believed in Him but I never really relied on Him until my world was turned upside down. I've lost jobs, friends, opportunities and self confidence.  I was speaking death into my life; telling myself I couldn't do a lot of things. My mom would always tell me that I was doing wrong and I needed to keep my faith but my harsh realities always reminded me how "bad" my situations were. It's funny how God take everything from you to give you what you deserve.

God is someone who doesn't give blessings out for free. You have to deserve your blessings by learning from your previous lessons and experiences. Every time, I wanted to move, spend some crazy amount of money, take a trip out of town/country, go back to school and/or get lavish gifts, God would deny me. I mean seriously leave me for broke, max out my credit cards, have people cancel plans and take away a job.  I was devastated. I thought if God truly loved me, why would he deny me all the things that I wanted?? That's the thing it was a "want". God only gives you what you need and deserve.










The hardest thing was to see my friends and family constantly get blessings like jobs, cars, houses, marriages, children, scholorships, tution reimburstment, money and the list goes on. And what tripped me out the most was when they complained about things not going the way they wanted it to be while I hoped to one day have what they had.  But God favors the faithful!

Faith wasn't easy to come by. I had to not only encourage myself but others around me.  The most time consuming thing is to listen on the phone or in person to someone crying, cursing and angry for any reason.  I want to be there for people, God has given me that gift but sometimes I wanted to smack sense in my family and friends.  The problem with a lot of us, is that we consider ourselves believers but we have lost the hope.  Forget the faith, thats no existent.  How do I know, I was once them. 

It was a time, when I just wanted to give up and give in to everything. I could have been homeless and had no care in the world and I would have been happy.  But I was pushed....pushed into my destiny.  I took a class at church that focused on spending time with God every day, learning scriptures, have group conversations with a bunch of women and letting them know all my buisness.  That for me was a huge challenge!  I stopped trusting women years ago after a close friend stopped being my friend.  It might sound elementary but it's just like your first heartbreak from your first love.  You never forget that pain.  I'll never forget both! God pushed me to speak to these women, "let my hair down" and release my guard.  They were there to listen, not to judge.  I'm so proud to say they are now my covenant sisters.That class taught me that God need to be in the center of my life inorder to get the blessings that I needed.  With alot of prayer, denials, crying night (even days) and true friends, I was able to get over the worst. 

My life isn't a crystal staircase now, it's even harder as my faith have gotten stronger.  But I'm writing this because at one point in time I questioned God's motives.  I seriously thought that I was being punished for all the wild, freaky things I did in the past.  But He was actually teaching me that I have to be stronger by denying my wants. Like the famous quote states, "you never know how strong you are until you have nothing but God." I'm still weak. I still occasionally curse, have a sip of wine, hang out with bad inflences, doubt myself and I don't pray EVERY day but I am happy.  I know I'll always be a sinner but I finally have faith. I'm stronger because I believe God has finally heard me!