831 – Eight letters, three words, one meaning

Have you worked out what it means? I love you! Don’t take it personally, I am sure you are a lovely person but whether I love you or not is debatable. Three words. I love you. So easily said but what do they really mean? Do we use them so loosely that they lose their real meaning? What is this love thing?

So much can be said about love and the words ‘I love you’. I know that my blog will not cover all aspects of the subject and you will find yourselves saying but what about this and what about that. That is fine because if my blog stimulates your senses and gives you something to think about then it has done its job. So here goes let’s explore some different types of love and the words ‘I love you’.

I can remember when I was a little girl falling over and scraping the skin off my knee. It stung so much and I remember my Mam cleaning the wound and putting Germaline on and a plaster. This made me feel loved. This is platonic love. Another childhood memory is when I burnt my back from sunbathing and my Mam put calamine lotion on. This also made me feel loved.

Our life experiences can influence how we give love and how we receive love. If we have been starved of love when growing up it can cause us to always be looking for someone to love us. If we have been betrayed or rejected this can cause us to be afraid of loving for fear of being let down or abandoned and we may hold back from becoming involved in a loving relationship in case we get hurt.

There is romantic love which is different to platonic love. Romantic love is the feelings you would have for a partner or spouse and there may be a physical intimacy that is not usually present in any other type of love.

This brings to mind the song ‘Evergreen’ sang by Barbra Streisand. Evergreen love means ‘a love that is always as new as it was in the beginning’. Even after time has passed the love is unchanged since you first started having the love for a person. An evergreen plant, bush, or tree never loses its’ leaves and has green leaves for the whole year.

The following words are in the song ‘Evergreen’

Love ageless and evergreen, Seldom seen by two

How wonderful to have a love like this!

All sounds very straight forward but is it?

Sometimes we love conditionally where love is only given if conditions are met and if not, then the love is retracted. Sometimes we love conditionally without even realising we are doing it. It is easy to love when all expectations are being met but loving when feeling hurt or disappointed takes a lot more effort. Loving regardless of flaws is not easy to do and to love without being guaranteed love being reciprocated is also not easy to do. To be loved unconditionally just as you are regardless of your imperfections and mistakes is very precious. Unconditional love is not easy to give and also not easy to find.

I made a decision to become a Christian in May 1994, this was in response to discovering that God loved me unconditionally and that he would never ever stop loving me no matter what. I believe that God made me and knows me completely and has a plan for my life. God’s love is a gift. It is undeserved and not based on performance. God loves us because we were His idea and we can be confident that He will never abandon us or stop loving us. In the Bible in Jeremiah 31:3 it says “I have loved you, my people, with an everlasting love. With unfailing love, I have drawn you to myself.” Love comes from God. 1 John 4:19 says, “We love because He first loved us.” When we know that we are loved completely by God then we are more able to love ourselves and out of that well of love will flow love to others. God demonstrated how much He loves us when He sent His Son Jesus to die on a Cross for our sins so that we could have a restored relationship with Him on earth and eternal life when we die. Romans 5:8 says ‘But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us’.

Love changes everything. When Jesus died on the Cross it changed everything. He did this because he was saying ‘I love you’.

The words ‘I love you’ when said with complete sincerity either platonically or romantically, can be life changing for the person giving the love and the person receiving the love. It was life changing for Jesus and it is life changing for us.

8-3-1 eight letters, three words, one meaning

I LOVE YOU!