Hallelujah

My last post was rather pessimistic. Reflection upon my post has made me rethink some of the things that I said. I am not naturally inclined to be negative. In fact, I am usually quite the opposite. I try to find positive light and happiness in just about any situation that I am thrown into.
However, I am still very aware of the fact that I have no clue what love is in the "real world" sense.
Maybe, though, that is not a bad thing.
I say "real world love" because I have never actually been in love, therefore I can't exactly put to words how I would react to it. I have yet to discover how my life will morph into something incredibly beautiful once I find my prince (shut up, I know it is cliche).
I can however, reflect upon the love that I do have in my life. I have so much love that I am blessed with. I am utterly speechless when I think of how much love that God has given me. I am thankful for each and every individual ounce of it; it has shaped me into the person that I am.
Allow me to elaborate:
I was raised in a family of five. I am the oldest child and I have two younger sisters. Emily is two years younger than I am, while Megan is five years younger. My sisters taught me that love is setting an example and being patient as you lead the way. They taught me that watching somebody fall hurts even more than falling yourself, but helping them get back up creates a bond that is not breakable. Sisterhood is taking hold of the hand of your curly haired annoying siblings and never letting go, because you love them more than words can adequately describe.
My parents taught me that the concept of having a soul-mate, a "one true love" and having somebody that God intended you to be with is real. I recall my mother cuddling me into her lap when I was young and explaining to me that she was grateful to have my dad, because if she had never met him she would not have me or my sisters. Of course my parents bickered, but I learned from their fighting that couples aren't infallible. Real relationships have flaws, and when one person devotes their life to another person fighting is inevitable. Honestly, though, I think that little battles are how relationships grow and two people find out what it means to fight to keep somebody through everything, because they know they're worth it.
In college I have met what I like to refer to as my "lifetime friends". Especially through my sophomore year, I have found people that I never want to let out of my life. I was bullied through most of my primary and secondary education. I'm not going to sugar coat it or say that it taught me numerous valuable lessons. It didn't really. It just sucked. A lot. I was given the impression that nobody really cared about me, and I had the inexplicable fear that there was something wrong with me. I was terrified that people were just trying to humor me by having small-talk conversations, or that I was the butt of every other joke. Through my college years I have been exposed to people who have reversed everything that was imprinted upon me in high school. They are the reason that I walk with my head high and my heart on my sleeve. I am finally learning to trust people and open my heart to them. I am holding back less, and allowing people to see my true personality: the goofy, happy-go-lucky intellect that embraces her quirks. My friends have shown to me that love is standing by another person's side through each and every storm that life requires they suffer through before they can finally be happy. It is showing them that they mean something, and that you will love them throughout everything that they will go through in life.
Love is forgiveness, love is understanding, love is the unconditional, irrepressible desire to hold somebody close to your heart. It is buffing out the scratches to reveal the diamond deep within somebody, even if it seems like an impossible task.
I'm going to blow your mind now: You can't really define love.
I know, I just went on a gigantasaurous (that is a word in the dictionary of Beth, don't hate) rant about it, but truthfully, love is a multifaceted, equivocal, ambiguous word. There is no definition of love. It is something that we must SHOW rather than DEFINE. At least not without throwing in a bunch of non definition not at all definitive (or descriptive, for that matter) definitions that are vague and don't really do much but make us feel gooey on the inside.
That, my friends, is why 99.99% of the human population is confused and probably why love is such a popular topic in novels, stories and blogs (ha!)
One of my favorite songs is a song that I heard in Shrek.
I don't even know who sings it, but it is on my iPod so whatever.
Hallelujah.
You know that scene where Shrek and Fiona fall in love and then are separated because she is clinging to the last bits of her humanity while he waits patiently for her. Yeah, that song. Its pretty awesome. I should probably know it from outside the movie, cause it is a damn good song, but unfortunately for me I am uncultured and I don't have a clue.
ANYWAY.
There are two "stanzas" (my inner poet is showing, oops! [obviously I don't know music as well as I should having played in a symphonic band for 7 years]) that I absolutely love:

"Love is not a victory march
Its a cold and its a broken
Hallelujah."

"Its not a cry you can hear at night,
Its not somebody who's seen the light,
Its a cold and its a broken
Hallelujah."

GAH! Simply beautiful.
Love in the romantic sense really is like that. We crave love and affection. We crave attention. We crave the feeling of being wanted.
It is the human condition to crave love.
So, therefore, even when we are slammed in the gut with pain; when we are lovestruck and heartbroken, when love shows us its ugly side and we are struck down with sobbing. Even when we hate love with every piece of being that we possess, we still fall to our knees and let our heads fall limply into our hands which clasped together while we scream out "Hallelujah," because we even got to experience the second of light and warmth that love offers to us before we are thrown back into the dark. That one moment lives in our memories and is real in our hearts. It is wonderful and inexplicable. The gentle flame within our hearts is everlasting once it is set, but it isn't enough to perforate the darkness sometimes. It takes patience to wait as the flame grows while we search for the person to spark that flame into a full blaze that can light up the world. 

So, don't be disheartened if you haven't found love yet. It is waiting for you, just around the corner, and it will be greater than you can even imagine. I'm in the same boat as you, and I can't wait for that one, perfect moment of realization that, "this is it: everything that I have been waiting for."
In that moment, I know we will both fall to our knees and praise God, saying "Hallelujah" and feeling so incredibly blessed for being given true love.