What is love?

What exactly is love? Is it a strong passionate feeling of the heart or is it a chemical drive formed in the body? These are questions that are extremely hard to test as well as answer. In the book Marriage and family, scientists say that people may interpret other emotions such as a strong sex drive, fear, or a hunger for approval, as love. People marry for other reasons besides love but love is a big contributing factor. When two people meet for the first time, they notice if the person is attractive, easy to talk to, and comfortable to be around. If they are harmonious together and share same interests and values, they become even more attractive. Looks are not everything because every individual has so much depth and charisma. It is easy to be physically attracted to someone but I believe falling in love is more than attraction and sexual desire. “It is attraction to and desire for a person with certain qualities, attitudes, and mannerisms” (Lauer P. 132). Once people mutually depend on each other, it leads to the fulfillment of people’s intimacy needs. People need intimacy in the fact that they all need someone to love, someone to confide in, someone to share experiences with, and someone to appreciate you for all that you are. There are two kinds of love which are passionate love or companionate love. Passionate love is the intense longing for union with a certain person and intense joy along with jealousy. Companionate love is affection for and commitment to someone that is deeply involved in one another’s life. Love is a commitment to the spiritual growth of your companion’s spirit. It is completely selfless and it is more than trying to satisfy one’s own desires such as happiness. It is constantly worrying about the other’s well-being. Besides the passionate love and companionate love, I think there is one more kind of love. There is a Christ-like love. I think this is a means of caring about every single person because we are all sons and daughters of God. Christ loved the sinners as much as he loved the children. He knows the intent of everybody’s heart and truly cares for the well-being of every individual’s soul. He loves us so much that he bled from every pore and died for us. He is the greatest example of selflessness and love. I know that Christ loves me and I want to follow his great example and show a Christ-like love towards all of God’s children.