Love First

Since it is Valentines day I thought it was only appropriate to write about love, since Valentines Day is all about love right?

I don't know if it's always been this way or how it is in other areas around the world, but something I have noticed in the American culture is that we find our worth in how much other people show us love.  We tend to expect the world to love us and then we will show love back, if its not too much work.  Oh wait, and if it doesn't take up too much of our time.  We can't waste any of our precious time... and as long as it doesn't cost too much and make me step too far out of my comfort zone.  That would just be too much. If we are not shown love, we sulk in our own despair and throw ourselves a pity party.  We may also lash out and say that love doesn't exist and that we are better off with out it.   I used to have this mentality, waiting for others to love me.  I found my worth in the amount of friends I had and relationships made.  With this mentality, I was never loved and never loved myself.

Here is the first problem with this picture, we tend to wait or expect others to love us first.  Sounds more like selfishness to me.  Love has no room for selfishness (thinking about ourselves first), but rather selflessness (thinking about others first).  So what we should be doing is not waiting for others to make the first move, but to go and love others first. 

This may sound weird, but I absolutely love love.  When another human being is willing to sacrifice time, value, money, comfort, joy, pride, importance and even life for another, to me is the most beautiful thing in the world.  There was a point in my life after many years of being picked on and never fitting in that I just broke down.  I thought about everything for a while and thought about my options.  I could just shut myself away and keep to myself and never get my heart broken and never feel any pain or I could continue to love others, do the right and risk getting my heart broken over and over again.  It was that day I decided that I would be much more miserable not loving others than I would be loving others and feeling the pain of not being loved in return.  Many people think that love comes easy, that's another problem area in American Love.  Love isn't always easy.  It takes patience.  It takes time, our sweet precious time.  It takes hard work.  It requires uncomfortability.  It requires dedication.  It requires risk. It requires sacrifice.  And many times, loving others hurts.

I started to find my worth not in others, but in God's love for me. I started to grow stronger and let less of the world tell me my worth, but it wasn't really until this last fall that I really understood and accepted this.  You see I was in a relationship for 4 1/2 years and when that started I started to find my worth in that person.  I started to find my worth in them because I spent so much of my time and energy on them rather than with my heavenly Father.  I never really loved myself and kept trying to gain worth through relationships that could never get me there.  About a year ago God gave me the gift of becoming single.  It was the hardest and most heart breaking decision that I have ever had to make.  Breaking the heart and cutting the tie with someone you have invested so much time, effort and love into for 4 1/2 years is hard, but honestly It was probably one of the best decisions I could have made for the both of us.  

I started to find myself and build my relationship with God again, but I still struggled with finding my value in others.  I could be surrounded by a hundred people and still go home feeling lonely and unloved, never completely fitting in.  It was then God gave me another gift, a trip to Texas.  It was here that I was forced to rely on him.  No more running back home or to others to find comfort, worth or love I had to run to him. Without all of the relationships I thought I needed to keep up with I had so much free time to be with Him.  This time I invested my love, my time and my effort into Him and in November (I think it was) for the first time in my whole entire life I finally came to love myself and feel fully loved.  With this new found love and singleness God has given me the chance and the time to love so many others than I could have before.  That is what I love the most.  I have the chance and the time to invest my love into so many more people now than I would have been able to.

We love because he first loved us.
1 John 4:19


Be the first to reach out to another in love.  Just imagine for a second, if everyone jumped up to go and love others before others could love them.  Think of how different this world would look.  Go and make it happen.

We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love.  God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them.  And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect.

1 John 4:16-17