Love isn't compromise and it isn't Settling.

For those of you who are close to me, you will know that something very, very important happened recently.

I'm still processing my feelings and my thoughts, and hope to share them as I go through them.

Today I wanted to share with you a lesson I'm learning.

"When it comes to love, don't compromise."

It sounds simple enough, but I know that there are very few of us that figure out what this really means on the first try. When I use to think of love, I rarely ever thought about what it would look like when it was returned to me but more of what it would look like when I gave it, I suppose I expected it to resemble, something out of romance novels or from the movies. You know, the roses/chocolates, kissing in the rain/ or simply saying I love you. And yes while those are grand sweet gestures, the truth is they are gestures everyone mimics.  I know love is more than that, but I thought of love and the way I would give it to the person I love; I did that banking on the fact that he would consider how he would reciprocate this kind of love to me.

This chapter of this lesson I'm currently trying to process, is loving myself. I consider if I had loved myself the way I'm trying to now, I wouldn't have settled or compromised for a love that was less than mine, thinking it would be enough if I loved him enough, if I was good enough, if he saw how much I was willing to do for him. Big big big mistake!  Needless to say, if I had loved myself the way I do, even this little, I would have recognized what I needed; and if it didn't resemble what I'm use to, what I give myself then I would have been able to know that this isn't it.

I'm trying to live and love without regrets, but this lesson stands out so clear in my mind right now, even as the dust settles around me.

I've come to realize that if my relationship with God was on par, growing and not stagnant, if I had known Him the way I do now, I would be able to recognize perfect love and anything that comes close to the way He loves me.  I would have learnt earlier how to love myself, and then be able to see that love when it is given to me and be able to give it in return.

So today I ask you this: How do you love yourself? Does the love you currently show yourself resemble God's Love for you?  And does the love you currently receive from your significant other mimic that?

 Originally published in 2011