I had the pleasure of having my father come over this morning. He is always fun to have around. My children love him, he is smart and fun to talk to. We got on the topic about how you really start to understand what love really is.
As a child I remember having this enormous love for my parents. I would cry when they left to go on a date, and eagerly await the moment they would come home. When I was sick I desperately wanted my mother at my side. Her just being near me helped enormously. I remember feeling so comfortable wrapped in a blanket snuggling with my father. Those are moments I treasure and love to remember. Moments that went by far to quickly. And I remember loving them with all my heart and soul. And I still do. As a child, that is what love was to me. Simple, comfortable and blissfully innocent.
As a teenager, I always had a crush on someone. It would change from week to week. I read some journal entries not long ago, and oh my how dramatic and silly I was. I thought I knew what love was. I remember when a boy I said I "loved" went on an LDS mission. I cried and told my father that I loved this boy. My father laughed and said, "Laura, you really don't understand what love really is." I of course knew he was wrong, and I was smart and I knew exactly what I was talking about. LOL, right? My father then said this, "Laura you are in love with the idea of being in love." Oh how wrong I thought he was. Didn't he realize that I knew everything already? I had so much to learn.
Then as I grew into and adult, and found my first love. He was someone who came into my life very unexpectedly. And changed my life forever. I did love him. I was in love with him. But he was dangerous, and was a "predator" in my parents eyes. But there was nothing they could say or do to change my mind. And I remember a specific conversation I had with my mother. She was trying to warn me. I had made the decision to move to where this man had moved for school. My mother did not want me to go. She was telling me how much she loved me. And how she wished I would reconsider and wait to move, at least until this man and I were married. We were engaged at this point, and I would come to find out later how much the engagement devastated my family. Because this man was NOT good for me. She began to tell me that she was worried, she did not want me to go. She told me, "Sweetheart, I would go to hell to get you if I had to. I love you that much." I still made the choice to go, and since she loved me, she did her best to support my decision. And onto a dangerous adventure I went. But my mother was right and I would later need her love and support more than ever only 5 months later, when she came to my hell and retrieved me from it's fiery realms. I understood a little more about love then.
When I was 23 I met a man, a wonderful, handsome, smart, spiritual and just all around amazing man. He fought for me when I felt weak or scared about our relationship. He loved me, he really loved me. And I fell in love with him, a love I never thought I could feel again, a love that was beyond my comprehension of love. He and I decided to get married. We chose a date made all the arrangements, he gave me a beautiful ring, and we were sealed in the Salt Lake City Temple for all time and eternity. He gave me the Temple marriage that I always wanted. Something I almost missed out on. And I understood that my father had been right, I did not know what love was when I was 17 years old. And now that I had my husband, I knew.
When I was 25, I gave birth to a beautiful little girl. The moment I heard her cry, I began to sob. My baby, she was my baby! I stared at her, and I then knew what love truly was and is. The love you have for a child is something that you cannot describe with words. It is overwhelming and joyous! It is remarkable. At that moment I understood what my mother meant when she said, "I would go to hell to get you if I had to." I understood what love really was that day.
I have 2 children now. The love I have for them grows and grows. I amazed at the love they have brought to my life. And now as I cuddle my children, or comfort them when they are sick, or sad. When they cry when I leave for an hour or 2, I remember the love they also have for me. And I am thankful for love of all kinds. And as I look at my children, I am reminded that, as much as I love them, I know it is only a glimpse of the love that our Heavenly Father and Savior Jesus Christ have for everyone in this world. I know that my children are a gift. And I am forever thankful for this gift.
My favorite scripture:
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1 Corinthians 13:1-13If I speak in the tongues of men and angels,
but have not love,
I have become sounding brass or a tinkling symbol.
And if I have prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge,
and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains,
but have not love, I am nothing.
And if I dole out all my goods, and
if I deliver my body that I may boast
but have not love, nothing I am profited.
Love is long suffering,
love is kind,
it is not jealous,
love does not boast,
it is not inflated.
It is not discourteous,
it is not selfish,
it is not irritable,
it does not enumerate the evil.
It does not rejoice over the wrong, but rejoices in the truth
It covers all things,
it has faith for all things,
it hopes in all things,
it endures in all things.
Love never falls in ruins;
but whether prophecies, they will be abolished; or
tongues, they will cease; or
knowledge, it will be superseded.
For we know in part and we prophecy in part.
But when the perfect comes, the imperfect will be superseded.
When I was an infant,
I spoke as an infant,
I reckoned as an infant;
when I became [an adult],
I abolished the things of the infant.
For now we see through a mirror in an enigma, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know as also I was fully known.
But now remains
faith, hope, love,
these three;
but the greatest of these is love.
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