Love grows...

I have just spent the evening with one of my dearest friends... in fact, she is the one with whom i share this blog and so many other aspects of my life. She has been my accountability partner for about 4 years now and I have no doubt that our relationship will continue for the rest of our lives. She challenges me to dream big, trust always, laugh whenever possible and whenever necessary... She has been with me through every single "romantic" relationship I have had- she has listened to me ramble on and on about boys and all the while, never confirming my fear that all my thoughts are meaningless. She has helped me to become the person that I am and encouraged me to be different. Without her- I would be less of the person that I am in journey to becoming. She is not the only one though- I have to attribute much of my good qualities to the company that surrounds me: my friends have shown me Christ in a way that I never thought imaginable, and the one friend that has shown me Christ the most, has reason to question my sincerity- not that I blame him for his questioning this.
He has shown me that following Christ has nothing to do with oneself- rather it is the complete neglect of oneself in which you find Christ and ultimately find yourself. It seems like that would be the round about way, but the truth is if you want to know about something you ask the person who created it because no one else can appreciate it or explain it in the same way- so if i truly want to know myself, then i should ask the one that created me. And my friend has shown me this in a way that I could not have grasped before- I just wish that i could express to him that things that I value about him have nothing to do with what he has done or where he has been, but with who he is- because if it were not for his passion and drive and complete commitment to that which is greater than himself, then he would not have been able to do the things that he has done or go the places that he has gone or met the people that he has... He truly loves God, as only few do, and I am lucky to have an entire group of friends that share love for God, which makes us able to share a love for each other unlike any love I have ever known.
Love is what drives me- love motivates- love inspires- love explains- love accepts (this one I am seriously working on)- love knows- love moves- love cries- love burns- love spreads- love illuminates- love loves- God loves so that we can love... so that we can love him and each other- so that we can love those who we deem worthy and more importantly those who we would rather see perish- so that we can love our family, our friends, our schoolmates, our aquaintances, strangers "i don't know your name but i want you to know that i love you" (lyrics from mr. carson)
"THE GREATEST THING THAT YOU WILL EVER LEARN IS JUST TO LOVE"
There are more books on love and relationship (romantic ones, friendships, siblings, mother/daughter, etc) than any other subject... We need it, we want it, we are made for it...
-Tara