Sometimes those cheesy emails yield some wisdom.

No one falls in love by choice;
it is by chance.

No one stays in love by chance;
it is by work.

And no one falls out of love by chance;
it is by choice.

I've always been infatuated by the idea of love. As dearest Rachelle has said, I "fell in love with love" by the 4th grade when I had my first official crush. But I've always been so naive - I don't think I've ever understood it. My idea of love has been so glamorized --- by Hollywood, by novels, by the true-life romances of my friends and family. For me, love has been idealized. Loving a significant other meant constant warm fuzzies, loving a parent meant being held all the time, loving a friend meant sharing secrets each and every moment of the day - regardless of the hour.

But naive me has learned a thing or two about love. Love hurts. I'm not trying to sound melodramtic but freakin love - true, raw love hurts. I'm constantly learning that love involves more than warm fuzzies or physical contact or connections. Love involves a whole other dimension that involves experiencing fear, letting go, having blind faith, trusting the unknown, questioning your securities and insecurities, doing a self-evaluation...

I'm learning that love isn't one or the other. It's both. Beauty and pain.

I can't help it - I'm cheesy but I gained another valuable lesson about love when I was watching American Wedding on TV. Homeboy's dad asked Michelle, "Why is it called 'making love?' Because you have to work at it." No shit... You have to put forth effort in your familial, platonic, and romantic relationships to make love come forth. Since leaving home --- my Mama, Daddy, Ate, and hs galpals, going to college in a new place --- finding my homies, sisters, and brothers, moving to the boonies of Montana --- living with the girls and working with my kiddos, and returning back home --- finally being with my boyfriend, it's been a journey of growing pains and learning the reality of love in its truest form - beautiful yet painful, incredibly overwhelming and confusing, sometimes conditional or sometimes unconditional... But to know love, I have to make love - live it, manifest it, enbrace it, and recognize that I'm constantly in love - immersed and surrounded by it too.

At the root of it, "love is from God and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God...for God is love." 1 John 4: 7-8 Something I need to remind myself often...

"Loves bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things... Love never fails." 1 Corinthians 13: 7-8

Love never fails.