Chosen Love

Since I recently shared a reflection on heartbreak, I wanted to follow up with something I wrote about love, and pair it with a random pictures from a night walk at the National Mall lol:

We don’t need to be with someone who chooses us; we need someone who understands why they chose us. The kind of biblical love worth waiting for is not born out of loneliness or curiosity, but out of clarity, care, and consistency. This type of love reflects the heart of God. The Bible reminds us that true love must be sincere, saying, “Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil, hold fast to what is good” -Romans 12:9 ESV. Real love is intentional; it doesn’t choose us to fill a void or to ease a moment of pain but because it has seen us, truly seen us, in our gentleness and quiet strength and still doesn’t look away. This kind of love reflects the truth mentioned in 1 Corinthians 13:7 ESV: “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

The right person won’t ask us to become smaller or easier to love; they will see our worth and choose to honor it. They’ll recognize the weight of your souls and decide that it’s something sacred, worth carrying. Their choice won’t be conditional or fleeting but grounded in understanding and grace, just as 1 Peter 4:8 ESV teaches us to “keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.” Real love doesn’t stay because it has to; it stays because it wants to; it’s a decision. Decisional love persists through our peaks and valleys, constantly reflecting the steady nature of God’s love, which never abandons or forsakes us.

In a world where people often choose out of impulse or insecurity, we deserve someone who chooses us with intention and faith, someone who loves us not because we are perfect but because they see God’s reflection in us.

This truth mirrors what is found in 1 John 4:19 ESV, which says, “We love because He first loved us.” NEVER FORGET true love is this: a love that understands, one that keeps, meets us where we are, and reflects the divine patience, devotion of the One who chose to love us first.