What is Love?

"What is love? Baby, don't hurt me. Don't hurt me no more." 

This song immediately plays through my head when I see a status on Facebook that ends with "I love you so-and-so" because it makes me question people's love. 

Do you seriously love a person after "going out" or "dating" for a week? What about two weeks? NO. As my best friend likes to say, you hormone the person. Your hormones and emotions are strong because you feel accepted and cared for, but it's not love. At least, not yet. You are confusing love for crazy hormones or really liking the person.

Love means something different to everybody. It has countless definitions in the Bible with the most famous or popular passage being 1 Corinthians 13.

That passage explains not only what real love looks like, but how we are told to love. It tells us how to love people and God. It explains perfect love, which is unattainable on Earth, but we can experience this love through God. 

Back to relationships, though. There is no perfect earthly relationship between husband and wife, boyfriend and girlfriend, friend and friend or whatever relationship you can think of, it will never be perfect. We are a broken and hurting people, therefore we are going to mess up. We are imperfect.

There is no deep, passionate love for another person after a couple of dates. 

I'm going to apologize now because this next part might be offensive depending on who reads it.

Middle school students, especially, but even high school and college students are mostly guilty of saying, "I love you" to a significant other before they actually feel love. They say the words and when you finally feel love, the phrase, "I love you" is almost meaningless because it has been overused. Its genuine and pure form has been tainted by overuse and misuse. 

Saying "I love you" before feeling love is not the only way the phrase and the word love has lost its meaning.

We say that we love a song or a food or a class, when in reality, we just really like it. I do it all the time. It's something that my generation has said for a very long time. With the tainted meaning of love, it's no wonder people question how much others care for them.

I can't say that I'm not going to stop saying that I love ice cream because it's just the way I talk, but I can say that I will make sure I show people I do love, like my boyfriend, my best friend, my family, my campus ministers, my friends and even classmates and roommates, that I do love them. I want to mean what I say. I want to love the way Jesus teaches and I challenge you to do the same. I want to challenge myself to only say, "I love you," when I mean it. It's going to be hard, but because we have changed the meaning of love, it makes it even more difficult for us to wrap our heads around the idea that God loves us unconditionally. 

If we don't change the way we use the word love, we are going to keep hurting people. So, I ask you now, what is love?

Going Against the Flow...or Are We?

Hello.
So it's 2012 and I'm joining the "bandwagon" of losing weight and getting back into shape. And yes, I am one of those people saying, "I'm going to keep this up." Well, I'll let you know. But the difference for me this year, compared to last year, is I have motivation. I finally want to like the way I look. I want to be comfortable in tighter clothes. I want to wear skinny jeans and be confident in them. I want to wear a bikini and not be ashamed. Those are my goals for 2012.
I like to think I go against the flow and do my own thing a lot, but I think about my daily life and especially those goals I have for 2012, that is not going against the flow. That's me giving into society and what society thinks is perfect. That's me changing the way I see myself. But, the good part is, God will always see me as beautiful. The way He looks at me will ALWAYS be the same. He is consistent. He is good. He goes against the flow. He sees me as perfect even when the world doesn't. He sees me as beautiful even when I don't.
Although I don't go against the flow and I set goals that are worldly, I think I'm going to turn to my Heavenly Father's way of going against the flow in finding beauty and perfection in things that we see as broken and ugly. I want to change my perception to match His as closely as possible. I want to create contrast between my life and the world.

New Year? No. Just a New Day.

Hello.
Today is the first day of 2012. According to many people, the world is ending in 11 months and 20 days. And every year on January 1 everybody says it's a new year and a new beginning. I'm going to be different. I'm going to change and become a better person, healthier person and so on. But, shouldn't we be willing to make that decision daily? Why does it take a new year for us to make decisions and get the motivation (for two weeks) to change and be different? Honestly, the only difference between yesterday and today, is the year at the end of the date. There are the same number of hours in a day. I woke up as Cara yesterday and I woke up as Cara today. It's just another day and I don't know about anyone else, but I'm planning in making decisions every day. Because every day is a new beginning. Every day is a new year.