The Love Package

Prescription: What Is Love To You? 🥰

Dosage: Readers are required to examine their love package. 🧐

*Bobs head to Chance the Rapper’s new album “The Big Day” …screams out “I ain’t single no more, I ain’t single no more! I done messed around and found a good one made just for me!” 

Alright alright, enough cause I can go on & on. Let’s focus, but I must admit finding love, having love, and being in love has been the most amazing experience for me. I still can’t believe after 10 years of friendship he ended up being my person. …..you know the person you imagine as your better half ……..the person you seek God for …………the person made just for YOU! And although I could brag about him all day, this blog isn’t about my boo, but it’s about

Love is such a compact word with so many meanings. Love can show in many forms and in different relationships. Each relationship can define what love is to you. Good, bad, or indifferent, you add something to your meaning of love daily. 

So, at 16 I thought love meant to sacrifice, compromise, and please others. And I cannot say that I was wrong, but I was expecting a whole lot from a teenage boy, who like me, had no idea what love meant, how to love, or how to have self-love. HA! How many times have you heard someone say “I love myself” and the predicaments they’re in doesn’t reflect that statement? STORY OF MY LIFE! 

Let’s take a look back, as a young girl, I’ve always loved everything about the word LOVE. I was the girl with the heart jewelry, “Love” engraved necklaces, plus I watched and read every romance love story there was. My music playlist was filled with love songs, and not the happy ones either, but the sad, brokenhearted love songs. Little to my knowledge, my infatuation with love songs, books, and movies all sculpted my idea of love and all of those stories were the same; singing the same song and a damsel in distress waiting for her prince charming! Yes, I admit my idea of love was based on a fantasy, a fairy tale if you will.

Well, thank God for growth! Don’t judge me, I know it seems crazy, but I was 16 and love was more about what I saw and heard, so if all I saw and heard were silly love songs, and romance movies, then what more could you expect? Which goes to my point now, my idea of love was based on what I saw and heard so, does that mean it wasn’t real? Not necessarily, but my idea of love was fictional, it had no foundation! 

How was love introduced to you? 

Now that I’m a little older, and experienced a heart break or two, I had to do some reevaluating on what love is to me. 

For those who don’t know, the birth of my blog started from a broken heart. Writing became therapeutic for me, it allowed me to self-reflect. You know there is something about pain that births PURPOSE! 

From my self-reflection, I learned that my broken heart stemmed from me not loving myself healthily. In hindsight, I was expecting a person to love me, but had no idea how to apply that same expectation to myself. 

Why? The answer to that is simple, I had not acknowledged my foundation of love…something that started from childhood! 

I remember being a child and every Sunday, my mother would have me wear a real pretty poufy dress with fluffy socks and black patent leather shoes. My hair was styled in pigtails with colorful hair-bows all over my head and 14 carat gold earrings dangling from ears. She would march me into church early in the morning, urging me to get to Sunday school, where I learned why God loved me. The popular scripture we learned in Children’s Church, the anthem for all believers. It painted to us why we love God, and how much He loves us. 

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16) 

I remember reciting John 3:16 every Sunday, but as I got older, I forgot what it meant to me as a child.

Sunday school taught me firsthand what love is; it’s a sacrifice.

That scripture hit different after a break up. 

Nah, but for real, at an early age, I was taught that sacrifice is a sign of love and that was just the beginning. My foundation of love begins with God. 

Me healing from my broken heart had nothing to do with what the other did wrong, but what I did wrong. I hadn’t stayed true to my first love, God. 

Let me borrow my girl Erykah Badu’s image of “Bag Lady” and use that same representation for love, but instead of a bag, love is similar to a package. 

When you have received a package that requires you to build something, what tools are in the package that helps you assemble it? Do you have to use tools from your home? Are there tools that you don’t need in the package? 

Let’s take a look at my Love Package, 

My package shows what was influencing my idea of love, and as you can see, God was in the package, however, it was becoming clouded by my influence of what I saw and heard. 

This is why I compared love to being a package… 

Think about it, you receive a package that requires you to build something. In the package you have the directions, the tools, and the ultimate picture of what the package is supposed to look like. 

You receive this package at your home, which can represent your foundation because it’s where you start the process. Now, lets build! You see the step-by-step instructions and the tools needed to build your package.

You start building, and notice you need a tool that’s not in the package. You grab that tool from your foundation and continue building until you reach your goal. 

Love is the same way. You’re introduced to love, which is typically your foundation of why/how you love, and like a package you build onto that love from every relationship. Some tools you learn based on the relationship and some tools you add to the relationship. As you build, you grow, as long as you remember your foundation. Some people have prolonged their growth by using tools that didn’t belong in their package, which causes frustration, confusion, hurt, pain and leads to stagnation. 

Lately I’ve been asking people around me what does love mean to them and where did they learn the meaning of love and has it changed? From listening to other’s love stories, I learned that people can only love from their understanding of what love is to them, i.e., what’s in their love package or what’s their foundation.

Learning, or re-learning what love is through God’s eye has not only helped me in realizing my worth, but encouraged me to spread His message of love!

Today, the world is filled with hate, and societal views on love can be misleading. Even the people around you can influence you to utilize tools that cause you more harm than help. I urge you to examine your love package and to reflect and remove the tools that don’t belong!

This is what happened to me, I was loving others based on fairy tales, and ended up only hurting myself in the end. If only I remembered where I was introduced to love I would’ve learned how much God loved me and that certain tools aren’t meant for my package.

REFLECT, REVIEW, & REDISCOVER love through God’s eyes! If love lifted me, then I know it’ll surely lift you too, let’s grow in love healthily, the way God intended for us to!

Stay Encouraged Daily Readers!