Cheryl Ries

Are you always left to wonder, hopeless or hopeful romantic?  We live in a world, where, by the nature of our lifestyles - the busy way we proceed through our days, we are often hitting and missing the mark with one another . . . love is left stranded and abandoned on the rocky shore, battered by the waves, we are beaten down.  We search, we seek, we hope, we wait. We give and expect, until we think, surely there is nothing worth giving and waiting for.  Just when we think we will find love, sometimes even then, it can be a shocking and surprise reality check.  We might begin to think love is a great urban myth created by some mass marketer just to get us to buy more greeting cards!  Love is real, it just isn't always really there.  It might be imagined, it might even be so hoped for, that it becomes an illusion pursued by two people who aren't even able to see the facade which they created.  In other words, sometimes love becomes so desired, the very hope of it is what makes it seem a genuine occurrence, when in fact, it isn't love, it is infatuation or another precursor to love, which will then wither and die.  Love will never wither and die.  Never.  Not when it is real.  It may be injured, maimed, abused and become tainted by melodious additives like jealousy and resentment, but real love is felt forever.  There is always a piece of the heart which holds the love of another forever.

Now that's the bleak part.  The better part is the hopeful part.  The hopeless part speaks to those who strive to find love, again and again, making the same mistakes, the same choices, the same plays in all the same "games" repeatedly.  It isn't that they actually want the same result, but they never learned from the prior experiences, which is the most desired part of having those life-lessons which can hurt.  We are compelled to learn something from each one to move ourselves forward in the process of living, so that we are not continuously repeating those very same mistakes.  That is the goal. It is only when we know who we are, love ourselves and respect ourselves adequately, and have a genuine appreciation for the chance to give our love before receiving it, that we will even have a chance at finding the real depth of love which exists in a relationship between two strangers brought together in a committed relationship.  Love isn't about completion, nor is it about waiting upon someone else to make you happy . . . it's about a true and real desire to be the addition to another person's life, with the desired goal of enhancing their life, helping them through all aspects of living, and giving your love, care and compassion in an unselfish way to another person for the total betterment of their experience while here on planet Earth.  If you are measuring those gifts you give on a meter, or placing too much expectation about what you're receiving in return, then chances are you might only ever find a superficial aspect of emotion, which never leads to the depths you are hoping for where love is concerned.

The most hopeful elements of love to me are the ways it can actually catch you by surprise when just musing it over.  It exists internally at such a level of consciousness, that it almost feels surreal at times.  It is truly indescribable.  It is hard for most people to make an adequate attempt at describing what love is . . a feeling, an emotion, a sense . . it is all of that and so much more.  It is beyond definition because it is beyond our capability of understanding in its most genuine form.  Real love, the kind which outlasts the initial attraction phase, and grows into the full-fledge, stand-by-one-another-forever stage is something so pure of spirit, so totally unfettered by human flaws of thinking and behaving, that it is surely beyond even our ability to measure, define, nor verbalize, much less properly understand. It is the ability to put yourself after another in need; to want the very best for another human in every endeavor; to feel a need to protect, nurture and assist another without fear for your own safety in this life even.  Does that sound too dramatic, too fantastic to you?  Then perhaps you've not loved anyone unconditionally through a daily decisive covenant to do exactly that.  Love, the best gift you ever received, is only that way when you first give it away without ever expecting its return!  Love, in any language, is always hopeful, the greatest source of joy, the biggest purveyor of faith, and the truest gift of God's grace.