Love explained

What makes you love something or someone over something else?

A powerful emotion should have a straightforward explanation, and yet, I’m having a hard time coming up with a personalized definition. 

I love, truly love, yellow flowers. Sunflowers, marigolds, Gerber dailies. Little flowers that dot the hillside. I see them, and I stop to gaze. Why do I love these yellow buds? I’m not entirely sure. I don’t like other yellow things. Yellow walls or clothes or cars. What is it about that spot of sunshine on a green plant that draws me in? I’d really like to know the whys and hows of this. 

There is a physical attraction to be sure. A chemistry that appears at some point tickling your heart. A moment when you say to yourself, “oh my! where did that come from? I wonder where this will go.”

Commonalities dot the landscape. I eat Mexican food. I’d rather walk. What do you think about picnics? These are a starting place scratching at the surface of love.

Deeper still, I want to know if he’s kind. A man of faith? Does he serve the community? Is he a hard worker? Can he set work aside, maybe only for a moment, but still set it aside just for me?

And yet. 

And yet, these don’t begin to explain what happens. What makes love tick. 

I know that where there is love, there is God. The same God who knew the number of hairs on my head before I was formed, also knows my decisions, my moves, my career, my desires, my friends. 

He also knows my love. 

He was there before me. He had a purpose in wiring me the way I am wired. The composer that orchestrated my very being. Orchestrated it all the way down to the flowers I would love. The men I would want to spend my life with. The possibilities aren’t endless. They are specific. They are limited. They are prepared just for me alone. 

The right combination of people and circumstances that may on the surface seem random, a fluke, merely coincidental. The right path, the right people, the right time. The right love. He already knew. I just had to be patient in life for the unveiling.