It's easy as 1, 2,3,4...I love you

Love. That is it for my week. I need to love everything, everyone, why? Because love is all you need. I realize that sometimes I go through my life saying I love this, love that, and love you, but really I do not connect with those three words, I love you. What do those three words mean to me? I have heard them and said them so many times, but really I have never embraced them. There are so many kinds of love out there, and I don't think I know them, so this week, I am going to learn about them and share them! Here are some of the definitions from Webster, have you read them before...?
1 a (1): strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties love for a child> (2): attraction based on sexual desire : affection and tenderness felt by lovers (3): affection based on admiration, benevolence, or common interests <love for his old schoolmates> b: an assurance of love love>2: warm attachment, enthusiasm, or devotion <love of the sea>3 a: the object of attachment, devotion, or admiration love> b (1): a beloved person : darling —often used as a term of endearment (2)British —used as an informal term of address4 a: unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another: as (1): the fatherly concern of God for humankind (2): brotherly concern for others b: a person's adoration of God
( Merriam-Webster, 2009).

So love can be romantic, endearing, desire, tenderness, admiration, concern, and God. God is love! I realized after reading 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 this morning, that I do not act in love, not often show love the way the Bible requires us, I am a clashing cymbal.

1If I speak in the languages of humans and angels but have no love, I have become a reverberating gong or a clashing cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can understand all secrets and every form of knowledge, and if I have absolute faith so as to move mountains but have no love, I am nothing. 3Even if I give away everything that I have and sacrifice myself,[a] but have no love, I gain nothing 4Love is always patient;13love is always kind; love is never envious or arrogant with pride.Nor is she conceited,5and she is never rude;she never thinks just of herself or ever get annoyed.She never is resentful;6is never glad with sin,but always glad to side with truth,whene'er the truth should win.[b]7 She bears up under everything, believes the best in all, there is no limit to her hope,and she will never fall.8Love never fails. Now if there are prophecies, they will be done away with. If there are languages, they will cease. If there is knowledge, it will be done away with. 9For what we know is incomplete and what we prophesy is incomplete. 10But when what is complete[c] comes, then what is incomplete will be done away with.

11When I was a child, I spoke like a child, thought like a child, and reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up my childish ways. 12Now we see only an indistinct image in a mirror, but then we will be face to face. Now what I know is incomplete, but then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.

13Right now three things remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.

I know in my heart that I get annoyed and I am resentful, a lot more frequently than I have ever been, and i am ready to let this go. I am ready to bear up under everything, I am ready to embrace what love is. My plan this week is to place hearts around my house with the verses I have just posted above, to remind myself to act lovingly not only to those around me, but to myself and to God. I want Delilah to know what love really is, not just what the words mean, but how to apply them to all aspects of her life, and who am I to teach something I thought I had mastered but really know very little about?