love, love, love

So the other day I was riding on a crowded bus on the way from Venice to the hotel. It was crammed with people and I was trying to stand up and hold on to the bar as it jerked its way from stop to stop. An Italian guy got on and from the back he really looked a lot like someone I know, and yeah, definitely thought something of. And it was like bam! I realized something. I don't know if I really truly think that or if that's something spur of the moment that later I'll reject, but I felt like for the moment I'd wanted love so much I was willing to settle for something less - way less - than what God has to give me. And in that moment I thought, "Lauren, what the heck were you thinking to think that could be love?" I feel like right now I am totally clueless as to what real, true love looks like...but God is teaching me. I think I wrote something on here before about how I'm memorizing 1 Corinthians 13. I have the first part of it down now, the part about how you can have incredible knowledge and do great things, but if you don't have love, you gain nothing. And now I'm starting to memorize the part everyone knows. You know, the part that goes, "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud..." and that's as far as I know for sure. It's really convicting me. I say I love people, I tell them, "I love you," with my words but with my actions? Am I really patient, kind, not envious, not boasting, not proud? I fail so much. I feel like I cannot truthfully say "I love you" when I can't live it out. But I guess saying "I love you" is more of a "I have feelings of love towards you and not only am I going to tell you that, I'm going to try to live it out."

I not only want to try to love my friends and family like that, I want to try to love strangers, and the people I'm serving in Greece like that. I want to love my roommate and suitemates at UNC like that. I want to love the people in my classes, the people I bump into in the hallways, the people I stand in line in the cafeteria with like that.

Oh, and what's going on in my life? I'm in France right now, in a hotel only about two miles from the border between France and Switzerland. Tomorrow morning we'll be in Geneva, aka John Calvin/other early church fathers and Swiss chocolate land. The past two or three days we've spent in Italy. I love Italy. It's probably my new favorite country. I loved the mountains and then the flat, green land with the perfectly planted trees and the pointed, tall, dark ones, the water that was so clear and deeply blue-green. And Venice was definitely one of my favorite places I've been in my life. I loved all the canals and bridges and boats everywhere. And the architecture on every building was so detailed and unique! I couldn't live there because of the incredible amounts of tourists - it's really a very touristy place - but visiting there was incredible. I want to go back someday. And the stuff there was really well priced so I spent probably more than I should have. :) But you can get Italian leather shoes for really cheap if you look hard enough, and pretty Venetian glass earrings, and silk scarves, and hoodies for 20 euros as compared to 40 in other places. And then Milan! We stopped at the designer outlets and I bought some sunglasses and a necklace because I couldn't afford anything else. Even at like 70% off the normal price. But Italy - the weather, the scenery, the places, everything! - is so beautiful. I love it so much. Right now we're taking a long, leisurely time to get to Paris, where we're spending a few days to conclude our European tour. Well, not really a tour. Mostly my dad lecturing and visiting family. Only Venice has been real sightseeing vacationy stuff. But I'm really so happy that that's the way our Europe trip has turned out to be.

Oh, and something else I've been thinking about that is kind of related to the idea of love. I don't tell people that I love them, or that I miss them, or how incredibly blessed I am by their friendship. I hardly even show it. I think it a lot, but saying it is something I just now realized that I honestly don't do enough of. Do my friends even realize that I am so glad they're my friends? That they affect my life more than they could ever know? That God has used them in incredible ways to change me and grow me? That I am so grateful to love and be loved by them? When have I told them that? Try never. Why don't I tell them that?