Love Is....

So, the past few days have been really boring. Really boring. I don't know how to change that completely at this point, but there is one thing that I'm going to do besides just working out and watching television. I'm going to read. Now, you would think that since I've worked at a bookstore for the past 10+ years that I would be an avid reader...weeeelll...I used to be an avid reader. It seems like ever since I got into working out that my desire to just sit down and read has greatly diminished. I find it almost unbearable to do something sedentary for more than an hour or so (although the way I've been watching t.v./movies the past few days would state otherwise). So, I've made it a goal to read two books the next two days. I'm starting with an Advanced Reader's Copy (ARC) of a teen apocalyptic novel called Eve. One of the perks of working for a bookstore is I get to read books before you sometimes. This one doesn't come out until October, but already I can tell I'm going to be getting the next two in the series (hello! Everything is a trilogy in teens nowadays...or a cycle if you can't seem to get it all in three books *cough*Inheritance*cough*). Well, one part of the book, about halfway through, has the heroine teaching young boys who have never heard the word "love". She's reading them "The Giving Tree" and it has the line "Once there was a tree, and she loved a little boy. And every day the boy would come--". One of the little boys raises his hand asked "What do you mean she loved him? What is that?" One of the older boys attending the class says, "It means to kiss a girl." To this the little boy was confused. Another boy chimed up, "No, it's not that. This is a tree. The tree isn't kissing the boy."

Eve finally says, "You can love anyone. Love is just...caring about someone very deeply. Feeling like that person matters to you, like your whole world would be sadder without them in it."

Now, this is a simple interpretation of that great concept love, but the more I looked at the definition, the more it made complete sense to me. Boiled down to the core of it, love is knowing your whole world would be sadder without that person in it. With that definition, I have countless people that I have loved and love and who love me in turn. I think of all my nieces and nephews and, while this is a complete no brainer, if any one of them left my world, I would be sadder. I think of my father. He did leave my world (you know the physical world where I could see and talk to him) and it is sadder because he is not here. This doesn't mean I'm sad all the time or that I don't have a hope that I'll see him again, but for the time in between, there is something missing in my life. I love my father.

I think of God when I read this definition. Of course, His love is something we cannot comprehend completely, but I believe His whole world is sadder when He loses a child. Each and everyone of us is loved so completely by Him and my world is sadder when I don't recognize that, when I decide to leave His presence. I don't know if that makes any sort of sense, but whenever I choose to stray from the path God has sent me on, when I willingly decide to sin or ignore His love, my world is sadder because He is not in my world. I guess that means I love God. I love Jesus Christ, too, because my life would be so much sadder if he wasn't in it.

My life is pretty good. (I don't know if that's a great way to end this blog entry, but there you go...great progress from the last one, don't you think? :)) 

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