What Is Love?: Is The Love Between Pastor Chris And Anita Oyakhilome Gone?

"Love can grow and love can die, it all depends on the farmer". Someone on my BBM contact wrote that on her PM and I immediately wanted to react to it and tell her that Love never dies, but I paused  for a moment and reflected on what she wrote and what must have triggered it. I also considered what Love really means is.

What Is Love?

If I add a pound each time someone tells me that love is just like any other feeling that comes and goes, I'll be so obese the world's most overweight woman would have nothing on me. So really, what is love?

According to the book of 1Corinthians 13:4-7 in my good old Bible, Love is not just like any other feeling. The writer Apostle Paul clearly defined what love is;

"Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. Love does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged. It is never glad about injustice,  it rejoices when the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful and endures through every circumstance." The writer went on to state that Love lasts forever. Looking at the Bible's definition of Love, one would agree that Love is about the purest thing there is on earth.

Love is definitely not when you want to be with someone because they have a lovely face, or a super fit body. Anyone with common sense and eyes would know this, but common sense isn't so common and there are loads of people who are blind despite having eyes so big and beautiful. Talking about eyes, over the years some people have come to agree that love is blind, but I don't agree with this notion.

The writer in Corinthians explained that love is patient. I believe patience comes to play when there's a particularly difficult situation that anyone would give up on, but love remains patient because it sees the potential in that situation or person. Love is always patient because it looks beyond skin deep to see the beauty that lies beneath, even when the object in question can't see this beauty. So how can love be blind, when it sees through you?

A lady once told me her love story which I find quite beautiful. Here's a bit of it;

" I loved him even before I knew what he looked like" , she said to me when she was explaining why she fell in love with her 1st love. " He was so easy to love...it was his sincerity and humility and love for humanity. It was mostly because he saw beauty in me when ugliness had practically saturated my life. I was at point zero in my life when we were introduced, but he somehow brought life back into my life...After 2months of not hearing from him, he phoned me to tell me that he had lost his hand in an accident and had to undergo surgery. At first I was alarmed and felt greatly sorry for him because I imagined how hard it'll be for him to live with just one hand, but that also elevated my love for him. I wanted to be there for him more than ever. When he later revealed to me that the hand wasn't amputated and it had gotten better before he called me, I felt a relief, but I knew that wouldn't have changed anything because I loved him beyond skin-deep..."

Is Falling In Love The Same As Loving Someone?

Some people can't tell the difference between this. It's possible to immensely love someone, but still not be in love with them. An example is loving your parent, but not being in love with them.

According to studies led by a scientist, Helen Fisher, an anthropologist at Rutgers University, the brain's "in love" state is a unique and well defined period of time. 

This study reveals that when you're in love you begin to think that your beloved is unique and this belief is coupled with the inability to feel romantic towards someone else. Being in love is exclusive to one person, which means you can't be in love with two people at the same time. 

However the most striking thing about this study is that it revealed the state of "being in love" is impermanent. It doesn't always last forever. This explains why people fall out of love and end a relationship. Love exists before you fall in love and if love was ever true, it should still exist when you fall out of love.

So What Happened To The Love Pastor Chris And Anita Oyakhilome Share(d)?

The relationship status of these two widely known ministers of God and their divorce saga is currently in the news, but it's not necessary new story. I really don't want to start asking if God honours divorce and how this will affect their followers and congregation worldwide, but I simply wonder what happened to their love. 

So reports say Pastor Anita Oyakhilome is opting out of her marriage with Pastor Chris Oyakhilome based on the allegation "inappropriate relationship" with female staff members. This voice in my head is asking; So what? Isn't love supposed to conquer all? Or do they share the school of thought of the lady on my BBM who believes love can grow and die depending on the farmer's effort. Everything still feels like a dream. So they fell out of love? People fall out of Love! Can't their Love help fix their marriage? Can't it spice it up and restore their "being in love" state? Maybe whatever caused them to begin this episode of washing their dirty linen in public is stronger than love so love can't fix it, but I still believe that Love is the greatest. I won't stop believing everything Apostle Paul said about Love in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8.

Bottom-line is "being in love" state could pass away and eventually die, but Love is never ending. If it was ever true, it'll always be true.

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Life is beautIFU!