Love is kind of a funny word. We, the general public, throw it around to describe our devotion to either a show ("The Office"), a particular dinner dish (spaghetti, hands down), or our fondness for a new song (Katy Perry’s “Rise”). But let’s be completely honest with ourselves. We just really like “The Office” to the point of being able to quote Michael Scott quotes. We really enjoy spaghetti because it reminds us of slurping up those saucey noodles, getting sauce all over our faces, back in our childhood days. Who doesn’t like Katy Perry’s song “Rise” enough to play it at least twice a day? (The answer is nobody because that song is awesome). But do we love it, or just really like that song?

See, the reason I ask is because, over the past couple months, love has smacked me right between the eyes, and not in a very subtle way. When I say love, I mean the type of love that knocks your socks, makes you want to laugh and cry, sometimes at the same time. The type of love that changes the way you see the world, in a weird optimistic way. I can’t imagine my life without knowing this love, even though I have spent nearly most of my life fighting it. Honestly, though, I struggle to reciprocate this love. I mean, shouldn’t it be easy to love someone back, especially if He sent His only child to die for every time I have wronged Him? You would think it would be easy to love myself, the life I live, the people in my life and, even the people on the streets who I have never met because God makes no mistakes in His. But I’m not going to lie, I struggle to love Him back.

When you love something, someone, it shows through your actions and words. I want to fall in love with the people God has placed in my life, whether they’re the ones on the streets or the ones actively involved in my life. I want to fall so deeply in love with them that I appreciate the fact they are alive every time I speak to them. That sounds morbid, I know. How often do we just think “man, I’m glad they’re in my life”? Probably not nearly as much as we should. I want to express the endless love that my heavenly father has shown me through every word I speak, and with everything I do.

I want to fall in love with my life, as conceited as it sounds. I want to fall in love with the fact that I am alive, where I can truly live today like it is my last. I, among countless others, take advantage of the days I have here on earth. Too many days have been spent binge eating ramen noodles, watching friends and wishing I were Jennifer Aniston, or wishing I could go on an adventure. Too many days were wasted on such thinking, and not seizing the day in a way that the Dead Poets Society would be proud of. Today is a day that has been given to me. Someone else didn’t make it, and I am blessed to have been able to wake up and experience it. I want to fall so in love with this life that I live every day like it’s the gift that it is.

I want to fall in love with myself. Sounds odd, doesn’t it? Think about it for a second. Song of Solomon chapter four, verse seven even says “there’s no flaw in you.” So why am I so eager to change so much about myself? God loves me, He thought that I’m great, so why do I so blindly and willingly try so hard to change my appearance, in what I believe in, change who I am, for a society that I am in tells me that it’s not good enough? God has loved and accepted every terrible mistake I’ve made, every time I have said something that would even make sailors blush, and every wrong that I will do. He has loved, accepted and forgiven it all. I want to love myself in a way that makes me disregard everything society doesn't like about me, and celebrate everything good about me because it’s what God has made.

I really like my life, the people in it, and myself and God. I do, but I struggle to completely and truly love. I struggle to love enough to have faith that good times will come, even if things aren’t going so well. I struggle to love God, because my human self wants to control every aspect in my life, and knowing I don't have that power makes me angry beyond measure when things don’t go my way. It’s hard to love. Love is a way of living, a way of acting, a way of speaking. God has shown me that He loves in every way imaginable, and I have fought Him for too long. I am giving up the fight, and I want to fall in love for real.

I’m ready.