a dissertation on love
this is an important post; one i was debating on writing, just like many other posts in the past that have been posted, and even more that have not been posted.
i released a post on monday night that i took down tuesday night.
that post will not be going back up.
while the post was real and full of my feelings, it didn't put out the message i wanted to ultimately send, which is why i only kept it up for 24 hours.
so here's one that is relatable and helpful. it helped me just to think through these things as i was writing them all out for you. yes, for you. even the one who doesn't think that i know that they still read my blog posts and watch my stories on my social media. hi, welcome, thanks for coming.
there is a generous handful of points i need to make in order for it all to come together and make sense at the end. it is going to jump around a lot. it's all quite messy but it's all good to hear.
first - loving someone and being in love with someone are completely different. you can love someone without being in love with them. but being in love with someone and loving them usually go hand in hand. you should love everyone, but i can guarantee you won't be in love with everyone.
second - love and infatuation are not the same. many people do not recognize the difference between love and infatuation. a lot of people do not even know what infatuation is. a lot of people mistake infatuation for love. love is deep and it is everlasting and true. (see First Corinthians 13)
third - what is best for you and what makes you happy are not always synonymous. most people think that if they aren't happy then they should move on to the next thing that makes them happy. but then again, maybe they are assuming that happiness and joy are the same thing.
fourth - happiness and joy are very very different things. happiness is fleeting. happiness is something you must continue to seek after every second of every day because it tends to slip away from you as soon as the thing that is making you happy slips away.
joy on the other hand is a completely different reality. when you have joy, it lives in your heart and does not leave. joy cannot be taken from you.
sometimes joy can stem from happiness and sometimes happiness stems from joy, but joy and happiness are still separate things.
fifth - the best things in life take time and hard work. if it's easy then it's usually not worth much. those perfect relationships you see in movies are not real. i wish they were but they're not. things get hard when you are in a relationship with someone. you fight. you disagree. sometimes you just wanna smack them around until they get it (but don't do that, seriously).
sixth - when things are broken, that doesn't always mean you should throw them away. just because the car runs out of gas doesn't mean you should buy a new one. a tank of gas is $30, but some people would rather just pay $25,000 for a new car rather than putting in some time to drive to the pump and pay the $30 to make their car run. i know it doesn't make sense but it happens every day in human relationships. sounds ridiculous, but it's true.
and get this - people oftentimes want their old car back because they realize, "holy crap, that was a good car, all i had to do was fill up the gas tank and maybe change the break pads, i think i will go back and get it instead of having to pay on this $25,000 car i just bought." but when they get back to the car dealer they realize that the car they traded in for something that wasn't worth as much to them has already been sold to someone else. this also happens in real human relationships, too. a lot.
seventh - promises are meant to be kept. yes, if you say you're going to do something even without promising it you should do it, but i was taught my entire life that you never ever break a promise. when you make a promise, you are totally serious about something and you guarantee it's inevitability. that's why they promise things at weddings; weddings are a very serious deal, they represent a lifelong commitment.
eighth - if someone loves you, they will not put their own happiness before yours. their happiness will stem from your happiness. your happiness will stem from their happiness. that's how love works.
ninth - love is a choice.
being in love with someone that is not in love with you is absolutely heartbreaking.
that is a hard reality to face. love is a hard choice to make, even with people who do love you back. once you choose to love someone, even if they don't love you, it is impossible to stop. there are people i love who i was close to once, but i haven't talked to them in months; in some cases even years.
and for some reason it's hardest to get over the ones who don't love you back.
i have had my heart broken. i have been the heart breaker. it's the risk that you take with loving people. when you love, you have to be sure that the person you are choosing to love is worth the risk of the heartbreak. a man once said, "...where there is great potential for joy and pleasure there must be an equally opposite potential for pain and sorrow. i believe, especially now, the reward must be worth the risk. you must be worth the risk..."
when you go into a relationship, you obviously go into it with great hope that things will work out. i date to marry, i don't just date to date. i know it sounds ridiculous considering my age, but dating with the wrong intentions is just setting yourself up for disaster, and i am on a (what seems like eternal) quest for love. true love. everlasting love. real love. shared love.
now, i have been told my entire life that i feel things on a much deeper and stronger level than most. someone very special to me once told me, "...Bekah you carry great weight with you because you honor the Lord so highly and feel so deeply..." this person also said "... you, Bekah Oldham, are a very special person. you think deeply, feel fully, and express yourself truly when you feel comfortable..."
i, inevitably, fell in love with this person. deep love. real love. true love.
i thought that they understood me. i thought that they cared about my feelings and my thoughts and what i wrote. i believed everything they said. i believed every promise they made. when they told me that they loved me i believed it.
but sometimes people say things they don't mean. and sometimes you take it a different way than they really meant it. sometimes they say things that they think they mean but really don't. sometimes they say things just to take it back later.
i don't think this person had intentions of hurting me. i think this person loved me the only way they knew how, which (to me) wasn't really love. which makes me sad for them. i am sad that this person believes that love comes and goes. true love is eternal. true love doesn't give up. i never gave up, no matter how hard things got because i love them.
i don't want to talk badly about this person because i still care for them and love them so deeply. i want nothing but the best for them, which is why i am choosing to leave their names and our personal story out of it.
in situations like this i like to look at things this way:
either they will fall in love with me one day and we will be happy and we will have joy and we will be in love with each other OR i will fall in love with someone that makes me forget about them.
sounds harsh but it's the truth.
that doesn't mean that i will stop loving them. that only means that i will stop being in love with them.
i am in love with someone who is not in love with me.
does that mean that my life is over? no
does that mean that no one will ever love me? no
does that mean i can't fall in love with someone else? no
and i don't feel foolish for loving someone, or for falling in love with someone, who isn't in love with me. it's not ideal and it hurts, but love, real love, is worth the risk. they were worth the risk. they still are worth the risk.
but no matter what happens, i am sure that true love will come my way. whether it is with the person i am in love with now, a person that i didn't expect, or a person i have yet to meet, i know i will meet someone who loves me as deeply and as fully and as truly as i love them and that is such a comforting reality to recognize.
if you are in love with someone who is not in love with you, fear not. love is on it's way. i'm sure of it. God did not make you as amazing and as lovable as you are for you to not be loved for everything that you are. all of you. every little bit of you. someone will love that. i promise.
i released a post on monday night that i took down tuesday night.
that post will not be going back up.
while the post was real and full of my feelings, it didn't put out the message i wanted to ultimately send, which is why i only kept it up for 24 hours.
so here's one that is relatable and helpful. it helped me just to think through these things as i was writing them all out for you. yes, for you. even the one who doesn't think that i know that they still read my blog posts and watch my stories on my social media. hi, welcome, thanks for coming.
there is a generous handful of points i need to make in order for it all to come together and make sense at the end. it is going to jump around a lot. it's all quite messy but it's all good to hear.
first - loving someone and being in love with someone are completely different. you can love someone without being in love with them. but being in love with someone and loving them usually go hand in hand. you should love everyone, but i can guarantee you won't be in love with everyone.
second - love and infatuation are not the same. many people do not recognize the difference between love and infatuation. a lot of people do not even know what infatuation is. a lot of people mistake infatuation for love. love is deep and it is everlasting and true. (see First Corinthians 13)
third - what is best for you and what makes you happy are not always synonymous. most people think that if they aren't happy then they should move on to the next thing that makes them happy. but then again, maybe they are assuming that happiness and joy are the same thing.
fourth - happiness and joy are very very different things. happiness is fleeting. happiness is something you must continue to seek after every second of every day because it tends to slip away from you as soon as the thing that is making you happy slips away.
joy on the other hand is a completely different reality. when you have joy, it lives in your heart and does not leave. joy cannot be taken from you.
sometimes joy can stem from happiness and sometimes happiness stems from joy, but joy and happiness are still separate things.
fifth - the best things in life take time and hard work. if it's easy then it's usually not worth much. those perfect relationships you see in movies are not real. i wish they were but they're not. things get hard when you are in a relationship with someone. you fight. you disagree. sometimes you just wanna smack them around until they get it (but don't do that, seriously).
sixth - when things are broken, that doesn't always mean you should throw them away. just because the car runs out of gas doesn't mean you should buy a new one. a tank of gas is $30, but some people would rather just pay $25,000 for a new car rather than putting in some time to drive to the pump and pay the $30 to make their car run. i know it doesn't make sense but it happens every day in human relationships. sounds ridiculous, but it's true.
and get this - people oftentimes want their old car back because they realize, "holy crap, that was a good car, all i had to do was fill up the gas tank and maybe change the break pads, i think i will go back and get it instead of having to pay on this $25,000 car i just bought." but when they get back to the car dealer they realize that the car they traded in for something that wasn't worth as much to them has already been sold to someone else. this also happens in real human relationships, too. a lot.
seventh - promises are meant to be kept. yes, if you say you're going to do something even without promising it you should do it, but i was taught my entire life that you never ever break a promise. when you make a promise, you are totally serious about something and you guarantee it's inevitability. that's why they promise things at weddings; weddings are a very serious deal, they represent a lifelong commitment.
eighth - if someone loves you, they will not put their own happiness before yours. their happiness will stem from your happiness. your happiness will stem from their happiness. that's how love works.
ninth - love is a choice.
being in love with someone that is not in love with you is absolutely heartbreaking.
that is a hard reality to face. love is a hard choice to make, even with people who do love you back. once you choose to love someone, even if they don't love you, it is impossible to stop. there are people i love who i was close to once, but i haven't talked to them in months; in some cases even years.
and for some reason it's hardest to get over the ones who don't love you back.
i have had my heart broken. i have been the heart breaker. it's the risk that you take with loving people. when you love, you have to be sure that the person you are choosing to love is worth the risk of the heartbreak. a man once said, "...where there is great potential for joy and pleasure there must be an equally opposite potential for pain and sorrow. i believe, especially now, the reward must be worth the risk. you must be worth the risk..."
when you go into a relationship, you obviously go into it with great hope that things will work out. i date to marry, i don't just date to date. i know it sounds ridiculous considering my age, but dating with the wrong intentions is just setting yourself up for disaster, and i am on a (what seems like eternal) quest for love. true love. everlasting love. real love. shared love.
now, i have been told my entire life that i feel things on a much deeper and stronger level than most. someone very special to me once told me, "...Bekah you carry great weight with you because you honor the Lord so highly and feel so deeply..." this person also said "... you, Bekah Oldham, are a very special person. you think deeply, feel fully, and express yourself truly when you feel comfortable..."
i, inevitably, fell in love with this person. deep love. real love. true love.
i thought that they understood me. i thought that they cared about my feelings and my thoughts and what i wrote. i believed everything they said. i believed every promise they made. when they told me that they loved me i believed it.
but sometimes people say things they don't mean. and sometimes you take it a different way than they really meant it. sometimes they say things that they think they mean but really don't. sometimes they say things just to take it back later.
i don't think this person had intentions of hurting me. i think this person loved me the only way they knew how, which (to me) wasn't really love. which makes me sad for them. i am sad that this person believes that love comes and goes. true love is eternal. true love doesn't give up. i never gave up, no matter how hard things got because i love them.
i don't want to talk badly about this person because i still care for them and love them so deeply. i want nothing but the best for them, which is why i am choosing to leave their names and our personal story out of it.
in situations like this i like to look at things this way:
either they will fall in love with me one day and we will be happy and we will have joy and we will be in love with each other OR i will fall in love with someone that makes me forget about them.
sounds harsh but it's the truth.
that doesn't mean that i will stop loving them. that only means that i will stop being in love with them.
i am in love with someone who is not in love with me.
does that mean that my life is over? no
does that mean that no one will ever love me? no
does that mean i can't fall in love with someone else? no
and i don't feel foolish for loving someone, or for falling in love with someone, who isn't in love with me. it's not ideal and it hurts, but love, real love, is worth the risk. they were worth the risk. they still are worth the risk.
but no matter what happens, i am sure that true love will come my way. whether it is with the person i am in love with now, a person that i didn't expect, or a person i have yet to meet, i know i will meet someone who loves me as deeply and as fully and as truly as i love them and that is such a comforting reality to recognize.
if you are in love with someone who is not in love with you, fear not. love is on it's way. i'm sure of it. God did not make you as amazing and as lovable as you are for you to not be loved for everything that you are. all of you. every little bit of you. someone will love that. i promise.
Hello Bekah. I am a Pastor from Mumbai, India. I am glad to stop by your profile on the blogger and the blog post. I am also blessed and feel privileged and honored to get connected with you as well as know you and about your love for God and Godly things such as love. Your dissertation on love and the points you have discussed are so valid and very thoughtful. I have gained some insights. I love getting connected with the people of God around the globe to be encouraged, strengthened and praying for one another. I have been in the Pastoral ministry for last 39 yrs in this great city of Mumbai a city with a great contrast where richest of rich and the poorest of poor live. We reahout to the poorest of poor with the love of Christ to bring healing to the brokenhearted. we also encourage young and the adults from the west to come to Mumbai to work with us during their vacation time. We would love to have you come with your friends to work with us during your vacation time. I am sure you will have a life changing experience. Looking forward to hear from you very soon. God's richest blessings on you, your family and friends and also wishing you a blessed and a Christ centered rest of the year 2018. My email id is: dhwankhede(at)gmail(dot)com and my name is Diwakar Wankhede.
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