What is love?

How the cost of service is sometimes the point

I’ve been thinking about this question a lot lately, in part inspired by a night a few days ago when my youngest was sick and couldn’t sleep without being held for very nearly the entire night. So, what is love? This is a bigger question than I’m prepared to tackle right now, but for the sake of this post, I’m going to make up some of my own definitions here, which I’m sure some will disagree with, including possibly me in the future. I’m not trying to be definitive, this is just me right now trying to parse some sense out of a word that we sometimes overuse (side note–I appreciate Rabbi Dr. Twerski’s take).

One large aspect of love is willingly doing something for someone that you wouldn’t have done if you only sought to please yourself. The feelings of tenderness or connection or physical attraction we often associate with the word love are often due to releases of oxytocin and, in my opinion, for the sake of this post, are better characterized by the words like or infatuation or attraction. In a lot of ways, these are at least partially self-serving as we get something out of our behavior in response to them. I kiss my daughter’s face because I’m biologically programmed on multiple levels to think she’s cute, and I enjoy doing it. In other words (using my personal definitions), because I like her. I change her massively poopy diaper and clean up the clothes that got caught in the middle because I love her. I play with my daughter because I like her–it’s fun for me to hear her laugh. I continue to play games that I have long since ceased to find fun myself because I love her. Using the terms this way, “falling in love” makes no sense because one doesn’t fall into serving others. “Love at first sight” should better be called “infatuation at first sight” because you haven’t yet had the chance to know them or do anything for them. Even these definitions are easy to get really mushy, particularly since there is often overlap, so I’m not necessarily trying to draw a hard line here. More point out that love is much more than what we feel.

But what about those things that you do because you feel like you have to, that you kind of resent needing to do (I will freely admit getting up in the middle of the night for a crying child sometimes falls into this category)? That can count as duty, which over time can contribute to love, if it is still done willingly. But if not, “if [someone…] giveth a gift [...] grudgingly … it is counted unto him the same as if he had retained the gift” (Moroni 7:8). Willing is an important aspect of my personal definition above. And I think that one thing some parts of our secular culture often get wrong is overemphasizing personal pleasure and self-fulfillment over choosing service-oriented love willingly. Which is not to say that it is necessary or even good to be constantly self-sacrificing. But perhaps if we go too far the other way we lose an opportunity to deepen real love.

So how does this tie into the larger picture of this blog? In my opinion, one of the great quests of mortality is to develop charity, defined in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 this way “Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth…”. Moroni 7:47 goes on to expound “But charity is the pure love of Christ, and it endureth forever…”. But that’s an awfully tall order. Serving others, and doing so willingly, even when it’s hard? That’s basically the antithesis of acting in our own self-interest, which humans have a tendency to do. So how do we go about developing it? Moroni continues in verse 48, “pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love, which he hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ; that ye may become the sons of God; that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is; that we may have this hope; that we may be purified even as he is pure.”

In my motherhood journey, I have been confronted more than I ever have before with the need for prayer in developing that kind of love. The oxytocin has definitely made me infatuated with my daughters, more than I could have imagined. I like to see them laugh and smile and learn. I have tried to lovingly serve them in a myriad of ways that, if left entirely to my own self-interest, I probably wouldn’t want to do. And in the times when that love isn’t always so willing, I’ve needed to ask Christ to fill me with a love bigger and more willing than my own. And He does. After all, He is always there to help us on our journeys home.