When you give up on the white horse, read this

When I listen to young women and even read some of their Facebook posts, I realize one way that we have failed them.  It seems their ideas of love and what it is or what it should be originates from fairy tales or the latest box office hit.   They believe there really is someone out there who will give them chills every time they see them forever.  Honey, trust me; if you have chills it usually means you have a fever and I don’t mean some heat induced love coma either.

For those of you desperately waiting for Brad Pitt’s twin to come riding up on a white horse in all his handsomeness and sweep you off your feet and carry you to his castle, well, have you ever heard the term “fantastical wish”?

Yes, when you meet Mr. Right, there are emotions and feelings and I will even go as far as to say butterflies on occasion, but what is love?  Is it just a feeling or is it something much more?

Love isn’t even remotely about the size of the ring, the exorbitance of the wedding, or how many ways he charms you on social media for all your friends to see (and be jealous!).  It’s certainly not about looks or size because all that will change as time marches on.

True love is an enduring promise; it doesn’t come and go with your moods and selfishness.  And as the hot flames die down, they turn into something warm and stable and more comfortable; like glowing embers that can be reignited.

Love is staying when you have every reason to go, its forgiveness whether you think they deserve it or not, it’s being patient when your patience is running out.  Love is what you have, when at the end of a long, horrible day, he can walk in and just know and give you a long, hard hug.  Love is telling you to lie down and rest and let him take a turn with the baby you were up with last.  Love is looking across the room and knowing that person has your back, whatever the situation.  Love goes through deaths, crisis and pain and grows stronger.

Love is making a choice to love on the days you just aren’t feeling it.  Love is caring enough to figure out someone else’s needs before they even ask you to.  Love is a tear in their eye, merely because there is one in yours.  Love realizes another’s dreams and helps them achieve them.

Love is not dragging people through their past and it should never glean satisfaction from an “I told you so”.  Love is not giving 50%, it is giving your all and then some.  Love isn’t easy, it is long-suffering.  Love isn’t for cowards.  Love has respect and would never ask you to do things that make you uncomfortable.

Love is long conversations, marked with smiles and laughter and him grabbing your hand while driving down the road.  Not so anyone can see, but because it’s what he wants.  Love is when he never leaves the house without a hug and kiss and an, “I love you”, because he realizes life is precious and sometimes short.  Love is a text when he knows you are struggling with something that says, “I love you and I’m here if you need me”.

Love can be messy.  It isn’t always dancing through the meadows with a song on your lips and flowers in your hair.  There usually aren’t any castles involved at all unless you go to the beach.  And the closest you might get to a white horse, is his dirty pickup truck.

Do I still get butterflies?  Yes, I do, but more importantly, when they are gone, or fail to appear for a while, I am not discouraged, because I know love is more than that and the longer you fan the flames of love, the stronger and more powerful it gets.

 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy;

love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely,

does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil;

does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth;

bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  

I Corinthians 13:4-7