"All you need is love, love; Love is all you need!"

I love this song! It feels so carefree and happy! However. what I'm about to say might sound jaded at first. Don't write me off; keep reading.

As good and romantic as it sounds to say, love is not all you need--not the kind of love the Beatles were talking about anyways.

I remember one time when my mom said this to me (when I mentioned that I wanted to get married before graduating from college and without any real marketable skills). I thought, "Well, what an old person thing to say! How unromantic!"
Of course, like most things parents say to us that we initially strongly disagree with, we grow up and realize that they were, in fact, right.

The love of my husband is not all I need.

If you think it is, then you try it. No matter how strong the love between you and your spouse/boyfriend/girlfriend is, it won't magically produce food for your table or money for your mortgage--unless you have a reality show based on your love. Ha! That's just the kind of world we live in. There are several things we have to have to survive: Oxygen, food, water, and some kind of shelter.

For that matter, I don't even have to have the love of my husband. I want that love, but I don't need it. I desire it, but it's not a necessity.

Some people think love is a necessity. In fact, most of us spend our lives searching for it. We want the love of a friend; we want to be loved and accepted by others; we want to be loved by our parents and our children. If we don't feel that love, we feel like we have failed. We are people who crave love.

Though we still need oxygen, food, water, and shelter, there is only one love we absolutely have to have.

The love of God.

Without it, we have nothing, even if we seem to have everything. Without it, there is a moon crater sized void in our hearts. How many times have you heard an alcoholic or drug addicted person say, that they drink or take drugs to try to fill an emptiness inside? People hoard things, carve their hurt on their wrists, drown themselves in their work, max out their credit cards, and give away their bodies to convince themselves that they only need acceptance; that they only need to breathe, to eat, to drink, to have a roof over their heads on clothes on their bodies.

Not one person on this earth has the love you need.

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." (1 Corinthians 13:4-7)

This chapter of Corinthians is frequently read at weddings. As much as I love my husband and would like to think we have this kind of love, we don't! We're not always patient or kind; we're not always polite or unselfish. I know that I definitely keep record of wrongs. I mean, do you get where I'm going? I don't know one peson or couple on this Earth who follows this to a tee ALL THE TIME. This is perfect love.

We need this kind of love. We need someone who would allow himself to be beaten, spit on, and brutally murdered so that we can live. We need someone who, in return for this perfect love, asks only for devotion.

You know why people are so skeptical? Because it sounds too good to be true. In this world, there is always a catch, so people can't seem to believe that it's that simple; that someone could love our ugliness, our craziness, our selfishness, and our dirtiness just because. But He does.

It's a paradox isn't it? Love is not all you need, yet, in the end, it is.