What love is, to me now

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trust, always hopes, always perseveres.'

- 1 Corinthian 13:4-7

I had sort of a sharing on Thursday evening with my CG. Then I went back home and saw this in one of my friends' blog:

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.

Then as I scrolled down further, I saw this:

I choose e former. I do believe in miracle...some unexplainable wonders tt happened, something u cant explain at all. YET i believe tt nothing is a miracle because Everything happens for a reason. A decision is made for a reason. What makes the decision? it's the owner of decision. E ownder is none other than the person him or her

Okay, quite a mouthful. Then, as I scrolled down even further, I found this:

Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it oepns up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.

Compare this with the passage in the beginning of this post...

Now, let's start with the ways to live life. One is as though nothing is a miracle, one is as though everything is a miracle. To me, both are too extreme, and conform people into two types. It does not give room for flexibility. Let's see, nothing is a miracle... That's quite an atheist world view, in that everything has a natural and scientific explanation. This I agree (regarding the natural part) but then, how do we define natural? Natural as in something we see everyday? Natural as in something we take for granted everyday? Who defines natural in this world? How much do we know of nature itself to determine that everything has a natural explanation? And yes, my friend is correct to say that everything happens for a reason. In fact, we exist for a reason. And miracles, too, happen for a reason. So logically, this implies that your 'everything' includes miracles!!! So does this contradict these two ways of living? Of course, to say that everything is a miracle does not make logical sense too, cos this will mean that you are basically living in lala land. Rather, let's accept this: everything happens for a reason, and because miracles happen for reasons too, miracles are therefore part of our life.

So, enough for miracles, though I want to move on to the reason in which everything happens, the reason which I strongly hold and believe, the only everlasting reason that exists since the beginning of time, and this reason I believe is love. In case you all never ever bothered to take a look at my navbar, let me share this verse with my readers first:

Now all these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of them all is love

- 1 Corinthian 13:13

So as 1 Corinthian 13:4-7 explains, it is love at its purest and most eternal and everlasting form. In fact, this is the love which created us, and because of this love, we are placed in this world for a reason and for a purpose (I dun want to get too philosophical today). That's why I totally disagree with 'Love is horrible' message. Maybe some of you may start asking, "but this is talking about BGR mah!" I believe that it applies to BGR too. In fact, from my own understanding, 1 Corinthian 13:4-7 is not only telling what love is, but also how to love. More than often, when we love, we put ourselves at the center of the relationship and we totally miss out on the point. In fact, when we place ourselves in the center, we are not loving others, but just loving ourselves. Hurt is more than often inevitable. If I am to be frank about it, more than often or not, I know that to love someone will bring hurt to me. But sometimes, if you are concerned about hurting yourself, then isn't it a sign that you are already placing yourself in the center of your own universe? By making a decision not to love because you dun want to get hurt, isn't that not dealing with the problem? There is this saying: Are you causing more problems by not dealing with the problem? In fact, come to think about it, how true is it. To not to love because of fear of hurt means that you are avoiding the problem that you can't face the hurt that comes along with love. Surely, it will create even more problems doesn't it?

Friends, life is all about love and the best use of life is love. Think about it. I saw this in another blog:

So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they're busy doing things they think are important. This is because they're chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning

How true is it...

The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in

These two quotes are taken from a book called Tuesday with Morrie but I haven't exactly read the book yet, and I took these quotes right off one of the blogs which I frequent a lot. This is cos I really believe in these two quotes a lot and amazed at how these two quotes complement the points I have made so far (not that surprising though since I think that the book is making a lot of references from the bible which I do today, which is not very often either)

Well, for those who has had bad experiences of love, here's a piece of advice from Philippians 3:13 again:

Forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead

Because love keeps no record of wrong, then why be bondaged by the past?

This is one of the rare posts so far which I have consciously made an effort to quote a few verses from the Bible and try to make some biblical sense out of everything I say. This is cos of the topic which I'm discussing here. In fact, to me, the Bible presents the best manual in love one can ever find. And they make practical cow sense, either in a biblical context, or in a broader and more secular context, be it whether you are a Christian or not. But whether you want to take it or not, I'll leave it to you.

In any case, I'll write again. See ya. Agape.