Love Never Fails

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”
— 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 (New International Version)

Love never fails us. To some that will be a big boast. We'll think back to past relationships and think: Love failed me big time. But we'd be wrong in thinking that. It either wasn't the real thing, or it ended because we failed love.

Lyrically, when you look in the dictionary under "L" for love song, some would say Percy Sledge's timeless classic ballad "When a Man Loves a Woman" could be the only definition. Sledge seems to cover the full range of sentiments about love and the human condition, in just under three minutes. Love hurts. Only love can break your heart. It's a thin line between love and hate. Love stinks. Love is like a heatwave. Love is like oxygen. My world is empty without you. Love kills me baby.

But for me love doesn't hurt. It's not just in the songs, everyone says love hurts, but that's not true. Loneliness hurts. Rejection hurts. Losing someone hurts. Envy hurts. Everyone gets these things confused with love, but in reality love is the only thing in this world that covers up all pain and makes someone feel wonderful again. Love is the only thing in this world that doesn't hurt.

We think that love can be full of doubt, but it's really we that doubt love, or fill our love with unnecessary insecurities. And sometimes all we have to do is take a good look at our partners and realise that no matter what happens, the present we have is the most beautiful time of all. The future will always be uncertain, but if you're truly in love, today the answer will always be yes.

Last year I remember watching two friends dance to the song "God Only Knows" by the Beach Boys at their wedding, and it was one of the most romantic things I've ever witnessed. We all felt a little more love that night as the lights twinkled down on us and the song made us all ponder a moment over who we'd be without our partners on that dance floor. The joy mixed with melancholy sentiment in the lyrics captures perfectly what it is to be connected in this life.

But love doesn't mope. It turns you around. It reminds me of one of my most favourite love songs which surprisingly comes from The Cure's dark catalogue, and was covered by Adele in her album "21". It only took a deceptively subtle two-word twist for Robert Smith to modify all of his previous moping, revealing him helplessly, hopelessly in love in his 1989 hit. "Whenever I’m alone, with you…" Written as a wedding present to his childhood sweetheart (now wife of twenty-three years), and containing only the starkest, simplest language possible (plus some truly, truly sweet guitar), it earns its blankly descriptive title "Lovesong", lifting it to some sort of platonic ideal. I believe this song is a twin flame love song, written by a man for his ultimate partner.

Sometimes someone says something so small and it just fits right into this empty place in your heart. That's what love is.

Love doesn't need to be perfect, it just needs to be true. Real love, true love is giving of oneself and one's resources without expecting anything in return. Love never allows someone to be just an option, while making something else a priority. When you are important to another person, he or she will always find a way to make time for you, no excuses, no lies, and no broken promises. Love is an oath to be together forever, never apart, maybe in distance, but never in heart, as the saying goes - because real love doesn't make us want the most beautiful guy or gal in the world, but the guy or gal that makes our world the most beautiful.

Moreover, love makes us recognise how blind we've been. The minute I'd read my first love story I started looking for my other half, not knowing that lovers don't finally meet somewhere, they're in each other all along.

And love is more than blind faith, which is sometimes called on to keep us moving in the right direction. We must certainly keep the faith. It will help us discover the magic of love - that faith that keeps us believing, keeps us going when we haven't yet seen the benefits we hope will happen.

But faith and your belief in yourself need to work together with the absolute conviction that love never fails, before we - ironically - realise its secret.

That only when we stop defining love, will love define us.

Yours in love,