As a proofreader and editor, few online abbreviations accost my creative conscience like the grammatically gauche "luv u." The simply sweet sentiment it serves seems squashed almost completely by the apparent lack of respect for proper spelling of the person on the other end.
But... my personal annoyance with the term aside, and for reasons completely unrelated to its grammatical disrespect, those words are hard to respond to or reciprocate. Why is that? I've recently had a few revelations about love, and I thought I would share them.
Nope, sorry, I have no announcements to make about my romantic life. Ah, well. However, I have been learning more about what it's like to love others on purpose... and even to have love for others (and from them) sneak up and surprise you.
In Greek, there are four different words for love. Storge, the unforced familial love. Phileo, the generous and affectionate "brotherly" love of close friendship. Eros, the love that's... a bit more than brotherly, if ya know what I mean. And lastly agape, the unconditional love.
It has been the development of storge and phileo that has surprised me most. God has blessed me with a few pretty unusual but pretty special relationships... friends that I never expected would truly feel close to me, a crazy collection of people I call brothers and sisters or family in general. Some of the things we have walked through together, and the way we've ended up pulling together on the other side, have made me realize that that "family" title isn't just for fun. I mean it. I love them. Which can feel a little scary sometimes (especially when some of them have the tendency to leave you the shudder-inspiring note, "luv you." They can't mean it....).
In Greek, there are four different words for love. Storge, the unforced familial love. Phileo, the generous and affectionate "brotherly" love of close friendship. Eros, the love that's... a bit more than brotherly, if ya know what I mean. And lastly agape, the unconditional love.
It has been the development of storge and phileo that has surprised me most. God has blessed me with a few pretty unusual but pretty special relationships... friends that I never expected would truly feel close to me, a crazy collection of people I call brothers and sisters or family in general. Some of the things we have walked through together, and the way we've ended up pulling together on the other side, have made me realize that that "family" title isn't just for fun. I mean it. I love them. Which can feel a little scary sometimes (especially when some of them have the tendency to leave you the shudder-inspiring note, "luv you." They can't mean it....).
Understanding that lovely side of relationships changes things. And has brought a few revelations about love to mind.
1) To love is to leave yourself vulnerable, to let what someone else knows about you matter, and to trust them with that.
Few things are as painful as a previously close friend turning on you and using the things that the two of you shared in confidence to tear down your relationship with their own two hands. But to have a true relationship, you have to risk that vulnerability and recognize that their opinion of you is going to matter. A lot. And regardless of what they do with your confidence, you can love them anyway.
2) Satan will use the doubt of love to make us insecure and unable to trust.
Lack of love means broken relationships. If we doubt others' intentions toward us, it becomes extremely difficult to trust them at all... or to trust others we may come across later. When doubt becomes part of our relational pattern, we lose potential for the intimacy God designed as part of relationships. So we must first trust him with the people we decide to confide in, and make our own objective, then, to be people of integrity who never give our loved ones reason to doubt us. Not because we expect them to be able to deliver us the same, but rather because we do love them unconditionally and don't want to hurt them.
Few things are as painful as a previously close friend turning on you and using the things that the two of you shared in confidence to tear down your relationship with their own two hands. But to have a true relationship, you have to risk that vulnerability and recognize that their opinion of you is going to matter. A lot. And regardless of what they do with your confidence, you can love them anyway.
2) Satan will use the doubt of love to make us insecure and unable to trust.
Lack of love means broken relationships. If we doubt others' intentions toward us, it becomes extremely difficult to trust them at all... or to trust others we may come across later. When doubt becomes part of our relational pattern, we lose potential for the intimacy God designed as part of relationships. So we must first trust him with the people we decide to confide in, and make our own objective, then, to be people of integrity who never give our loved ones reason to doubt us. Not because we expect them to be able to deliver us the same, but rather because we do love them unconditionally and don't want to hurt them.
3) To love is to sign up for hurt.
Not necessarily because of points 1 and 2, in which the other person betrays a trust or our doubts are justified. Simply put, it is impossible to pass through life without experiencing pain, and when something hurts those we care deeply about, it hurts us, too. When we sign up for love, we sign up for the other person's aches and wounds. Sometimes we sign up to feel pain they themselves do not have the capacity to feel as of yet.
We can only truly agree to love when we acknowledge this, and recognize that the relationship itself is worth all the pain it will bring. From a philosophical perspective, pain is one of the beauties of life... though it sure doesn't seem like it when we pass through it.
Not necessarily because of points 1 and 2, in which the other person betrays a trust or our doubts are justified. Simply put, it is impossible to pass through life without experiencing pain, and when something hurts those we care deeply about, it hurts us, too. When we sign up for love, we sign up for the other person's aches and wounds. Sometimes we sign up to feel pain they themselves do not have the capacity to feel as of yet.
We can only truly agree to love when we acknowledge this, and recognize that the relationship itself is worth all the pain it will bring. From a philosophical perspective, pain is one of the beauties of life... though it sure doesn't seem like it when we pass through it.
4) Loving is worth it.
Despite the hard moments, the occasional betrayals, the rifts that arise, we grow through love. Life is enriched through love. Especially love that purely desires the thing that is best for the one who is loved.
Truly loving someone gives us the ability to serve them without seeing it as demeaning or somehow beneath us. It enables us to be for them the very thing that we would desire for ourselves if we could give voice to that deep, often hidden longing. And the beauty of love is that it often has the tendency to come full circle: when we love others well, they may very well come full circle to love us in return.
Being loved by someone, in a pure, unforced, self-sacrificing sense, is the sweetest gift you could receive. It's worth the pain. Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.
luv u.
Truly loving someone gives us the ability to serve them without seeing it as demeaning or somehow beneath us. It enables us to be for them the very thing that we would desire for ourselves if we could give voice to that deep, often hidden longing. And the beauty of love is that it often has the tendency to come full circle: when we love others well, they may very well come full circle to love us in return.
Being loved by someone, in a pure, unforced, self-sacrificing sense, is the sweetest gift you could receive. It's worth the pain. Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.
luv u.
I've had to learn to read it for the sentiment it conveys. There is somebody on the other end of that phrase who cares. Cares enough to write me those words, in fact. So at the very least, that person is my friend. And I very likely love them too.
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1 comments:
Sweet Lyndi girl, this post was SO timely today—this week, in fact. But then, love is something every human craves and needs, every day. I remember a tall, lovely young woman who kept inviting me to do things with her... I wasn't sure if we would be friends, but she kept trying, kept loving me. And all these years later we're dear sister-friends, even though that girl lives in Far Far away (aka: the Dominican). I am thankful that you love me, and that your love extends to so many others, too.
Love you =)
~ Me
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