LOVE, in its essence.

I've always seen LOVE as something wrapped in a big question mark.
Society has given love a vague and distorted meaning and I’ve always wondered why we’re not taught in school what love truly means and how to live it. I observe, sometimes with a quiet sadness, how parents try to teach their children about love — and I gently wonder if this isn’t one of the reasons why the world has become what it is today.

My brother once shared what I like to call a divine metaphor for the love between a man and a woman. He said:
"The flower is the man, and the water is the woman."
The flower is beautiful and thrives thanks to the water. Without it, the flower would wither and eventually fade away.

At first glance, the flower draws all the attention and appears to be the most important, but in truth, it is the water—the quiet essence of life—that sustains it.

The truth is, one could not exist without the other.

An old saying goes, "The one who loves suffers the most." It is, perhaps, one of the most widespread and, at the same time, one of the most misunderstood sayings in the world. I believe that nearly everyone I’ve spoken to has echoed this belief, claiming it from their own lived experiences. And indeed, it’s hard to argue with someone’s life story—or to tell them they might be mistaken. After all, we each live as best we know how, guided by what we believe will serve us.

But the deeper truth is this: the one who truly loves has never suffered—because love, in its purest form, does not suffer. Love only loves.
Suffering is the experience of the one who is distant from love, from God—or of the one who has not yet discovered what love truly means.
Jesus did not suffer. Even as he was crucified, he loved. He loved fully, completely.

Suffering is of the body and of the mind. And the beauty of true love is that it transcends both. The one who truly loves—deeply and authentically—no longer feels the pain of the body or the noise of the mind.

One thing I’ve come to believe is that, from the very beginning, we humans have often misunderstood love.
We’ve confused it with dependence, obsession, possession — and sometimes even with fear.
To be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever heard a couple say, from the depths of their hearts, that what truly keeps them together is pure, authentic love.
Most say they stay because of the children, or because they rely on each other financially.
Others stay because they’ve grown used to one another, and perhaps the idea of starting over feels too heavy.
And then there are those who stay simply because they’re afraid — afraid of change, afraid of loneliness, afraid of the unknown.
But love, real love, is never rooted in fear.

For me, love is incredibly simple — because love simply loves.

When I hear the word love, I immediately think of God.
Because God is love — pure, authentic, eternal.
He loves us unconditionally and without end.
So much so that He gave us the gift of free will — the freedom to live our lives however we choose.
Even if that meant forgetting Him... and even standing against Him.

But God loves us so deeply that He created the illusion of separation —
so that we, as human beings, could experience what it feels like to be truly free.

And yes, in a way, we do feel free...
But only to a certain extent.
Because the truth is, we have never really been separated from Him —
from the One who is in all things and beyond all things.

God is in everything you see, touch, smell, hear, feel.
He lives in you and in me.
In the one you love most, and even in the one you cannot forgive.
He is in the criminal and the victim, the sun and the storm.
He is in the air you breathe and the water you drink.
He is in the food you eat, and yes — even in what your body lets go of.
He is in the stillness of a stone, and in the endless motion of the wind.

God loves us all. He hates no one — and this is something you can be absolutely sure of.

He has never punished a soul, not from the beginning of creation until now — and He never will.
We are the ones who punish ourselves, through our thoughts, our choices, our pain.

You might ask: “If God loves us so much, why is there suffering? Why is there hunger, violence, and pain in the world?”
And I would say: the illusion of separation from God is the illusion of separation from love.
And where love seems absent, fear steps in — fear, hatred, envy, jealousy.

Every soul is born with the sacred right to choose.
God does not send us into the world full of hatred — He births us pure, fragile, and full of beauty.
It is life, and the way we respond to it, that shapes who we become.

And I believe you already know — deep down — that you are free to be whoever you choose to be.
No one is forcing you to become anything other than what you wish.

If you choose hate — you can.
If you choose love — you can. Just as easily.

Here on Earth, everything has its opposite:
Good and evil, love and hate, abundance and poverty, illness and health...
These extremes exist so that we might have the freedom to choose what and how we wish to live.
God created all possibilities so that we might become who we truly are — by choice.

A child born with illness may carry the sacred purpose of teaching those around them to cherish their health.
A child who passes away in the womb or at birth may awaken in their parents a deep reverence for the gift of life.
And those who leave us in unexpected ways often leave behind a silent message:
“Appreciate what you have.”

In its essence, love is gentle, warm, and tender.

It is patient, kind, understanding, and wholly giving.
It does not imprison. It does not hate.
It is not violent or aggressive.
It is never deceitful or manipulative.

Love is not obsessive.
It is not dependent.
And it is certainly never possessive.

The one who claims to love, but speaks with cruelty...
The one who cheats, who hurts, who controls —
That person does not know love.
Not truly. Not yet.