Images of My Life: Blog Challenge Day 3: My First Love (Oh, boy!)

People who know me and see that Day 3 of the Blog Challenge is "My First Love" are either laughing or shaking their heads. So, it's no big secret that I'm not exactly good in the love/relationship department. After I got my first boyfriend (Jeff Carter in 6th grade - Yes, I remember... I believe it lasted 2 whole weeks, and, no, I'm not claiming that was my first love), I was rarely without one. I had a couple of long-term boyfriends - the longest being a 4-year on-again/off-again thing with a guy from my church (who was very nice, and I liked him a lot - thought it was love, but was wrong). Long story shortened (by A LOT), I was engaged three times and married twice by the time I was 25. I had a lot to learn...

One of my favorite musicians, Jason Mraz, wrote It takes no time to fall in love, but it takes you years to know what love is. That was the problem - I kept "falling in love" without ever knowing what it means to truly love. I have said that I loved many people throughout my life - students, friends, significant others; I'm just not sure how many times I said that in the true meaning of the word.

I now know that to love someone is to love every little thing about them, to always put their needs in front of your own, to never be truly happy unless you have made them happy, to never ever settle for "good enough" when it comes to pleasing them. To truly love someone, you must constantly want to make your relationship with that person better. When you love someone, you're willing to give your last dollar, the coat off your back, or your last breath for that person. Most importantly, unless God's love is holding you together, it's not love.

It took me multiple tries to finally figure out that I was the problem. I had no idea what it meant to love someone. It took God completely breaking me and allowing others to build me up to help me realize that without a relationship with Him, there could be no true love in my life. So, after He finally got through this hard head of mine, he gave me my very first true love, Ronnie. Then he gave me Carter Lane, and then Trent. I love them more each day and would gladly give everything I have in order to make any one of them happy.

So, here are my very first real true loves (make sure your speakers are on b/c it has a great song on it, too):