I've written about kindness, joy, compassion, and now love for my series on beauty for Darling Magazine. You can catch up on articles you've missed here, and stay tuned for the final two articles in the series in the coming weeks: generosity and confidence.
Love is an action, a decision, a choice. Love does not require that we like the person on the receiving end, and in fact the most powerful forms of love occur when the one we love is an enemy or someone who has wronged us.
Love is a selfless act. It demands that we set aside our wants and desires in order to meet the needs of others. Love forgives quickly and serves readily. Love calls for sacrifice.
As a newlywed, I’ve learned more about love this year than I did in the past twenty-four. I know the statements above to be true because day in and day out, I either see them in action, or see things fall apart when they are missing.
Aside from this first year of marriage, I experienced real, life-changing love during several difficult years of battling anorexia during college. Consumed with coping with my own pain and emotionally numb, I truly had nothing to offer those around me. I felt worthless and unlovable; looking back I can see that while my actual worth never changed, I certainly was a hard-to-love friend. Nonetheless, my friends stood by me. [Read more...]
UPDATE: Read the whole series here.
When have you experienced love when you didn't feel like you deserved it?
