Jan 22, 2014
The “L” word
by Elianna Chroniger, Alfred Station, N.Y.
In February, you’ll start to hear lots of people using it. That’s right, the “L” word is love.
People nowadays use this word as much as they use the word “like.” Let me tell you—it’s, like, a lot of, like, times.
The word “love” doesn’t seem to hold much meaning anymore. People “love” a girlfriend or boyfriend of two days. They “love” that new purse or those new shoes. The deep sense of the word “love” is gone. It fascinates me that some people “love” anything and anyone they meet, as soon as they see them.
I think our problem is that we only have one word to encompass so many levels of feeling. This is where the Greeks got it right. People need different words for the different kinds of love.
We need a word to express the love of a brother or sister, like the word “Phileo” in Greek. We need another word to express the love between a man and woman, like the word “Eros.”
We also need a word to describe the unconditional love of a parent for a child, or the love of our Heavenly Father for us. This is my favorite word. The word is “Agape.”
Defined, Agape means loving, even when the person you love does not love you back. That’s incredible to think about. I can’t even imagine someone who can handle that. I guess that’s probably because the people I know aren’t superheroes, and they do get upset like everyone does.
However there is always one person (without human emotions to get in His way) Who loves you so much that He doesn’t care if you love Him back. As you face struggles and question God, or just don’t see why something challenging could happen, He still loves you! God won’t get mad at you for being friends with another girl. He doesn’t stop speaking to you because you ignore Him. He is always there to listen to you, even if all you want to do is yell.
He won’t interrupt you or tell you that you’re wrong. He won’t be anything other than loving, even when you think you don’t deserve it.
Our Heavenly Father is so great. He is always there to love us. The Agape love He shows us may be hard for us to wrap our minds around, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Remember that today. Remember that, even if you aren’t a scholar and you just can’t grasp God’s love for you—He still loves you!
Think about God’s Agape for you, and try to extend the same courtesy to someone else. Someone who isn’t your husband, wife, or child. Step outside of your comfort zone and show someone who might has never really known God how it feels to be loved even when they screw up.
Show them that they don’t have to understand God either. He loves anyone and everyone. Black, White, Asian, male, female, or any other stereotype—God loves us all with the unfailing Agape love that we don’t deserve.
Remember the different meanings of love. Every time you hear someone say “I love you,” wonder if they know about the Agape love of Christ. Share it with them. Be one of the few human beings who come close to showing complete Agape love.
