From The Love Song for Shu-Sin https://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section2/tr2442.htm to the Song of Songs https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Song%20of%20Songs%201&version=NIV, Love has been a present force since the beginning of mankind. The aforementioned are two of the oldest poems ever discovered about Love. Interestingly enough, both begin with women professing their Love to a man while the man receives and reciprocates it.
The most recent study of singles conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau reports that 46.4% of Americans are single https://www.census.gov/newsroom/stories/unmarried-single-americans-week.html. In 2024, the Pew Research Center reported that 69% of individuals who had never been married desired to be married someday https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/02/15/among-young-adults-without-children-men-are-more-likely-than-women-to-say-they-want-to-be-parents-someday/#:~:text=Today’s%20young%20adults%20are%20reaching,like%20to%20be%20parents%20eventually. This draws me to the conclusion that the majority of Americans don’t know what Love is, don’t know how to Love, and have never been taught how to practice Love.
What is Love?
Merriam-Webster defines Love in several different ways including, but not limited to feeling passion, thrive in, to like, devotion, a score of zero, an assurance of affection, kindness, devotion, unselfish, loyal, and of course, sexual desire.
What this definition displays is that Love can be an emotion felt through various avenues. But what happens when those emotions fail you? What happens when your partner is annoying, irritating, or some other display of temporary emotion that doesn’t sit well with you at the moment? I know that in this case, when emotions fail you, that Love also becomes a choice.
PsychCentral https://psychcentral.com/relationships/love-is-a-choice-more-than-a-feeling confirms that Love is a choice with individuals in long-term relationships agreeing that they choose to Love their partner, communicate, and work through life’s issues together. Often times we read that our grandmothers and great-grandmothers only stayed with their husbands because they had to. What we don’t hear, is that they made the choice to stay because they chose a loving commitment with their spouse. Love is an emotion, a choice, and it is spiritual.
Love and Religion
In Christianity, Hinduism, Muslim, and Jewish cultures, Love is seen as coming from a superior being who, in return, Loves back. In these same cultures, marriage and the family structure is the epitome of Love and it’s fulfillment between a man and a woman.
This understanding of Love and religion is another element to practicing Love. Christianity, Hinduism, Muslim and the Jewish religion are some of the oldest in human history and they contain the essential element of Love. Love is practiced between God and His creations, between husband and wife, and between parents and their children. Understanding that Love comes from On High helps us to learn how to practice it in a physical, emotional, and spiritual way with one another.
How to Love someone
Gathering the understanding that Love begins with emotions, involves God, and is a practice that you have to choose to participate in will help you to begin learning how to Love someone. Love has to be a selfless act as it requires you to put someone else above yourself.
In today’s society, the airwaves are constantly buzzing with a false perception of Love. The perpetuation is that Love is sex, Love is passion, Love is feeling good while you are with that person at all times. Love is easy and anyone who brings challenges against who you are is not the person you should consider being with long-term.
The truth is that Love is challenging, Love pushes you past your most comfortable self, and Love confronts you with hard truths about yourself that you must face. Can Love be easy? Yes. Can Love be full of passion, sex, and feel good times? Absolutely! However, these emotions do not constitute the overall experience of Love.
Learning how to Love someone involves understanding who you are, what you want to achieve in a relationship or a familial goal, and what type of person best suits those pursuits. You also have to consider what things you won’t tolerate i.e. laziness, abuse, adultery, etc. and ensure that the person you’re considering has similar values that align with your own and displays good character traits on a consistent basis. I also know that you MUST consult with God on whether or not your prospective partner is a green flag or a red one. Wait on God, listen to His response, and then move accordingly.
How to Practice Love
Love can be easy to practice but it can also be quite challenging. I have been with my husband for 11 years and you better believe that practicing Love hasn’t always been easy! I was a very aggressive woman with abandonment issues so I tended to be very verbally aggressive and threaten to break up if I felt backed into a corner.
During an argument, my husband said to me that he didn’t appreciate the way I spoke so recklessly and that I needed to change my language. I hadn’t had anyone ever challenge me on my speech but I did have the women in my family let me know that listening to a man would automatically render me weak. I was at a crossroads with whether I opened myself up to being vulnerable to domination or if I continue on in my behavior with the possibility of losing him for good. I chose to be vulnerable and he kept my heart safe allowing me to feel secure in doing this again in different ways and with different bad behavior patterns that I had accumulated.
Don’t get me wrong, he had his bad behavioral patterns as well, but we chose to work through them and change together and for each other. Vulnerability is a key part in practicing Love as you have to let your guard down in order for someone to come into your heart.
Practicing Love is making the decision to communicate, listen, and make changes for your partner in an effort to elevate your relationship and life together. Love is waking up everyday choosing to be grateful for your spouse, facing the challenges of the day together, and deciding to be loyal and committed to that person despite life’s hardships. Love cannot live where it is not fed.
1 Corinthians 13:4-7
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast ,it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, is it not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
With Love,
Mother Ocia