Lost in Love

I have been trying to understand such a little word lately.  LOVE.  And yet it feels like it is the hardest word in the world to define.  

love

noun \ˈləv\

: a feeling of strong or constant affection for a person
: attraction that includes sexual desire : the strong affection felt by people who have a romantic relationship

: a person you love in a romantic way

And yet, when you look up the word and read the definition the dictionary provides...  It tends to just focus on romantic relationship.  And now in the aftermath of abuse, romantic love is something I wish to avoid.  It is hard enough to understand the love that God gives to me.  And when I take the time to attempt to think about that love, I find that I am overwhelmed by feelings.  And yet, if you ask me to identify the feelings with a word...  I am speechless...

You see love is something in my life that was something you proved you were worthy of.  That was what filled all my waking hours.  Something that I am still trying to accomplish.  Even with my mother dead and buried, I desire to prove to her that I am worthy of her love.  And yet that love is conditional and always caused me a great deal of pain while she was alive.  Each breathe that I took always felt like it was being measured against a stick.  And I could be just one mm off and I knew I would hear about it.  Perfection was the goal...  and in my attempts I never saw perfection.

It could have been a simply as not wiping the piano the way my mother desired... but the amount of her complaints was always so great.  Just like the afternoon that my mother got upset with my father... And she threw dinner at him.  And while they continued to argue... I cleaned up the mess.  And yet when they were able to stop fighting...  I was dragged into the kitchen over each spot that I had missed.  Add to it the fact that I couldn't figure out where my mother was in the process of making dinner, and was punished for the ruined dinner and the fact that it was late.  I didn't really care about my family since I couldn't manage to fix dinner. 

That is something that still races in my mind.  And each one of these points in my life seems to be etched forever on my soul...  and I find that it helps to cloud my mind about the real definition of love...  

So... maybe this is where I start right now...  learning to understand the full definition of love.  And maybe in understanding the definition, it will help with the waves of emotions that just the thought of unconditional love from God seems to bring.