Searching For 1 Corinthians 13

Love is a word I learnt at a young age, maybe four, maybe ten years old, and I loved the sound of that. See what I did there?

Love to me was my dad closing the bedroom door and my mom screaming and crying in pain; I guess that's how they showed each other love, right?

Love is when I went to the next plot to get my hair done, just a 4-year-old, and walked out with my skirt upside down and zero memories

Love at 14 was the novel I read about this exotic man who was always broody, rude, and detached but still got the girl; imagine that! She was supposed to be all cute, with a smashing body and tolerance at 200, and the man was hers

Love at 24 was my boss grabbing me to sit next to him and his hands traveling inside my trousers away from CCTV cameras; he paid my salary though when he could and fired me when I refused

Love came in so many shapes and forms, but one consistent thing was a man was involved, ever smiling and giving because isn't that love? You give, I give? Love calls me and says, " Send me money, " not, " How are you? It says I want to leave all of you, and I need you to understand me and stop me - indecisive much Love says hold me and never let go, but not too much or you are too clingy. Am I your lifeline? While pressing the life out of me

Love met me again, and I gave it a chance, but at this moment I am not sure this love will stay. 3 is the new count, but I am not sure about 13 because this one tells me to wait, and I am not sure if I am waiting for a platter or showers

But the greatest love is a man who explained it in a book, or is it a letter to some weird dudes in Corinth this time? 13: Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.

It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. ❤️

— 1 Corinthians 13:4–8a (NIV)

Yet He has been impatient because I am not serving as I need to, harsh based on all the pain I am feeling, proud as His love always reminds me how I cannot make it without him.

Angry, why else does he look away when I yearn for him? His love has disappointed me, maybe because I thought he was different.

So to the dudes from Corinths :

Love is patient, they said.

I have only known love that asked me to hurry.

Hurry and grow up.

Hurry and understand.

Hurry and forgive.

Hurry and heal before the bruises had even decided what color they wanted to become.

Love is kind, they said.

I have known hands that smiled before they hurt me.

Voices that called me beautiful while teaching me my body belonged to them.

Promises that sounded like hymns until they became prisons.

Love does not dishonor others.

Then why do I wear shame that was never stitched by my own hands?

Love is not self-seeking.

Then why have I always been the offering on someone else's altar?

Love keeps no record of wrongs.

Yet my body remembers what my mind cannot.

My heart keeps receipts and my memory misplaced.

Love always protects.

I have waited for protection that arrived after the damage was already done.

Love always trusts.

I want to.

God knows I want to.

But trust has become a language my tongue forgot how to speak.

Love always hopes.

Hope feels expensive these days.

Every time I buy it, grief sends me the receipt.

Love always perseveres.

So have I.

But surviving and living are not the same miracle.

Love never fails.

Then tell me—

Which love have I been meeting all my life?

Because the love I knew slammed doors.

It stole childhood.

It signed paychecks with one hand and stole dignity with the other.

It asked for money instead of my heart.

It wanted my body more than my soul.

It is called leaving freedom and staying loyal.

It taught me that endurance was romance.

And then you.

The One who says You are Love.

I have read your letter.

I have underlined every word.

I have preached it.

I believed it.

But today...

Today you feel impatient because heaven is quiet.

Today you feel distant because my prayers echo back to me.

Today you feel proud because every lesson seems to begin with how much I need you.

Today You feel absent because I keep looking toward the door, waiting for You to walk through it.

Maybe it isn't You.

Maybe it is the voices of every counterfeit love,

speaking over Yours until I cannot tell who is talking anymore.

Maybe I have mistaken silence for rejection,

discipline for abandonment,

waiting for forgetting.

Or maybe this is what faith feels like—

holding the hand of Someone you cannot see,

while wondering if He is holding yours too.

So I returned to Corinth.

Not because I understand it.

But because I want to.

Teach me the kind of love

that does not ask me to disappear.

Teach me the kind of love

that leaves no fingerprints of fear.

Teach me the kind of love

that feels like coming home instead of surviving a storm.

And if You are patient,

be patient with my questions.

If You are kind,

be kind to the girl who learned love from broken people.

If You never fail,

stay.

Even while I am still deciding

whether I know what love looks like.