Love is the Fact of Life

Love is a fact of life. For all human beings, and especially for teenagers, it could be said that love is THE fact of life. It is one thing that is central to all human existence. You might have come to this realization already. Simply by looking into your own mind and noticing how much of your time it spends thinking about people of the opposite sex, fantasizing about people of the opposite sex, dreaming about people of the opposite sex, wondering about people of the opposite sex, feeling depressed about people of the opposite sex and so on, you get a good idea of how important this topic is in the human realm.

Because it is so important and so central to human existence, love is something that can be extremely confusing and frustrating. I know that as a teenager love was extremely confusing and frustrating to me. I had a huge number of questions about the whole space, including (If you are a girl, please replace "girl" with "boy" in the following questions):

• Why do girls hate me?
  
• 
  
• Why do I feel so awkward around girls?
  
• 
  
• Why is it that I think about girls all the time, despite the fact that I would rather not?
  
• 
  
• Why does it hurt so much?
  
• 
  
• Why does it seem like a lot of people don’t have these problems? Why does it seem like they are able to walk up to girls, talk to them and the next minute they are going out together and having a really great time? Why are a lot of those people athletes?
  
• 
  
• Why are pretty girls like they are?
  
• 
  
• Why do a lot of girls seem attracted to guys who are obviously idiots and who treat them badly? I would treat a girl great, but that seems to make no difference. Why?
  
• 
  
• What is jealousy, and why do I get so angry about it?
  
• 
  
• Will I ever find someone who I can marry?
  
• 
  
• When?
  
• 
  
• Why can’t it be now?
  
• 
  
• How will I know when I have found the girl I should marry?
  
• 
  
• Now that I think about it, what is marriage again? Why do we have marriage? Why don’t we all just go around having sex with whoever we feel like all the time?
  
• 
  
• For that matter, what is love? I mean, what the heck is going on here to begin with?
  
• 
  
• Why does it seem like adults don’t have these problems?
  
• 
  
• Why do my parents say they are "in love," but it looks so different from what I mean when I say I am "in love"? In other words, why does their love seem so boring, why do they have fights and why do they never hold hands?
  
• 
  
• • 
    
• And so on.
  

You might have asked one or two of these questions yourself. Obviously, this is a pretty big and complicated space.

One way to begin to get a handle on love and to begin to understand it better is to try to tackle it one piece at a time. We will start with the fundamental facts of life concerning love. Once you understand these facts you have a foundation. Then you can move on to other areas.

MInd, Heart and Soul

Love is a language of the heart. It is so often portrayed through expressions of emotion and feeling that rational thinking is rarely mentioned in the same sentence. However, to get right to the heart of the issue, emotions often cloud understanding, obscuring what is or isn't love. Many important considerations are treated lightly or ignored.

We are three-part beings, coming from separate spheres. Our spirit is the offspring of God. Through the spirit we commune with His Spirit. Our body comes from earthly parents and experiences life through the senses. The unity of body and spirit is the soul of man.

Much of our learning is intellectual. We absorb facts and experiences. What we learn through emotions and feelings is no less important. These two modes of understanding are based in the mind and heart. But enlightened discernment comes from neither thought nor feelings alone. Only when we turn our understanding to God can we understand things that are spiritual.

We don't get to know God's love through empirical senses, by sight or sound. But Paul says in I Corinthians 2:9 that it isn't through the heart either. Things of the spirit can only be understood spiritually.

What does this have to do with love relationships?

The mind and heart are integral to love. Love isn't just a feeling. If it were, it would be a physical/emotional experience manifest merely between two physical bodies. And if it were merely intellectual, love could exist in the physical absence of lovers. I've painted both sides in extreme colors, because real love is not one or the other, but a combination of mind, heart and spirit.

We experience love through senses, emotions, feelings and thoughts and through a spiritual connection. All of these aspects are part of a complete experience. Take one or two away, and you're left with something less than real love. It's quite common that people who are "in love" only on physical and emotional levels, don't have the depth of compassion, conviction and trust to last a lifetime. All by itself, the heart is a fair-weather companion.

In Hopelessly Devoted, Olivia Newton John sang, "My head is saying, Fool, forget him.' My heart is saying, 'Don't let go." Conflicting messages should not be disregarded. In looking for a lifetime companion to marry, we need to heed every message from the head, heart and spirit, while suppressing the would-be overriding hormonal desires.

In marriage, husband and wife no longer need to wonder if they are in love. But they have a greater challenge: to keep the combination of mind, heart and spirit in harmony. Husbands and wives need to nurture all aspects of the soul. They give attention to one another's physical, emotional and spiritual needs. Neglect in any area creates an unbalanced marriage.

Love is an act of faith. It can be nurtured by looking to The Source.