Happy lover's day ladies in Steem for Ladies community. I am happy to appear before you again today in writing. Today I will be sharing my view in this contest "Love is a Beautiful Thing" organized by @ninapenda. Kindly sit tight, read and send in your comments. Thank you.

image source

I will define love as a feeling of strong affection towards a person or something. Love is a natural phenomenon in the human nature. This is because from the beginning of human creation man was created out of love and to be loved. God is love. That is why despite the fall of man in the garden God still created a remedy by sending Jesus, His only begotten son to come and rescue the soul of man out of destruction, as referenced in John 3:16 "For God so loved the world, that he sent His only begotten son that whosoever believed in Him. Should not perish but have eternal life".

Love is broad, love is sacrifice, love is understanding, love is giving, love is loyalty, love is respect, love is patience, love is tolerance, love is everything. There are different types of love, they are:

1. Agape Love - God's kind of love i.e. unconditional love. For this kind of love, you do not need to do anything to be loved.
2. Philia - Affectionate Love. Philia is love without romantic attraction and occurs between friends or family members.
3. Pragma - Enduring Love.
4. Storge - Familiar Love i.e. love between neighbors, colleagues and mates.
5. Eros - Romantic Love. This kind of love is common between couples, or between certain people that have intimate relationship without necessarily being married i.e. boyfriend/girlfriend
6. Ludus - Playful Love.
7. Mania - Obsessive Love.
8. Philautia - Self Love. This type of love is between an individual. That is loving oneself.

It is best to first love oneself before extending your love to others, because if one should first love his or herself you will have a better understanding of how to love another person.

source

I want to believe that most people when they hear "love your neighbor as yourself" the first thing that comes to mind is the person living next door close to their house. No! Your first neighbor starts from the person living in the same house with you. which includes, your spouse, children siblings before extending outside to the next person living in the next flat. It can as well be the next person sited close to you in a public transport and the list goes on and on.

In the case of a wicked neighbor you still need to keep on loving them because your good towards them might change them. Now get this clear, loving a wicked neighbor does not mean eating his food and becoming close to the wicked neighbor. You have to be wise as serpent. Loving a wicked neighbor is about reaching out help to them even in their wickedness, the least we can do is greet, smile and be respectful.

Let me share my personal experience with you. In my compound my Landlord's wife kept on being hostile to me by saying mean things to me. First she became close to my husband and began to say mean things to him that made him come back home and disrespect me. At some point he became violent with me. A friend of mine who used to see them stand together to discuss got angry and said I should confront them. I refused, instead, I kept on greeting and respecting the woman. God defended me and put a final enmity between them. All their gossiping and closeness came to an end. I still greet and respect her and there is this surprising look that she puts on each time I greet her. Like I had advised earlier, I can never eat anything from her nor become close to her. A wicked person is always looking for how to execute his wicked acts. So be careful.

I have had several love experiences from different people, ultimately from God. Like in the case of God's love there are a lot of horrible things that have happened to me that could have ended my life or made me run mad on the street, but God will always make a route of escape and survival for me. For instance, after my first child birth, I have had mental problem for about 3 consecutive times. God made people and money to be available and I got treated and returned to normal. There was a time I died but God brought me back to life. To me God's love is eminence in my life.

This is me and my beloved mother.

The second person I have experienced love from is my mother. She has really been through a lot for me. Right from raising me up as a single mother to taking care of me during the time of sicknesses and even sleeping on the bare floor at the hospital during my child delivery. The one that she really deed that made me feel most for her was when my mental problem set it. The first point of attack was her. When the incident started, I accused her of being a witch, hited her eye with the heal of my shoe and that eye became damaged. Despite all that happened, my mother still love me so dearly and she still cares for me, she prays for me and had never laid curses on me. Though when I regained consciousness, I sincerely apologized to her. I can only describe her kind of love as Agape love, that is unconditional love. There are mothers who can not show their children this level of love. I really respect and appreciate her for showering me with this kind of love. I have also learn to exhibit this virtue of loving unconditionally from her.

Yes True Love bear all things, believe all things, hope all things and never ends, like I had sited above. I am a witness of all these virtue that love has, my mother is a clear example, she bears all things, always believe better things that concerns me. For instance, I lost my job since August, 2022 and things were really rough with me and I was so discouraged about life, my mother will always encourage and pray for me while still supporting me from her small business. She does not give up on me even when I could not renew her rent last year because of the horrible thing that happened to me. True love is had to be found, when found should be appreciated and celebrated. True love should be respected and not be taken for granted.

"Sharing love" just once a year I will say is wrong but if you had said "celebrating love" once a year, I will say is not wrong. What I mean is that, sharing love should be a continuous thing, it should be a daily routine as we relate and interact with people. Celebrating your love in a big way by setting a special day to appreciate and celebrate the one you love is not bad. At the same time, expecting gifts or failure to acquire gifts from or to your love should not make you miserable on a special day like Valentine's Day. Since love is understanding, you should be able to understand your capacity and before planning a big for a day like 14th February. Do what you can afford and accept the little show of appreciation from your love. Since love is giving, also make efforts to gift your own love too. Do not forget that even insignificant gifts like smile, sweet words, kindness, loyalty, visiting, sharing in their sad moments and every other gifts outside material things are even more valuable than the material things.

I just got a job this January and things are beginning to take shape. I do not have any money to buy any special gift to celebrate my mother today. I will sacrifice my work transport money and visit her today just to tell her sweet things and how much I value all her love and care towards me, and give her a kiss then go back to my house.

In your little way show someone love today and appreciate their show of love no mater how little it may seem. Thank you my friend, @wakeupkitty for your show of love by inviting me to take part in this contest. My friends @bela90, @ngoenyi and @dequeen join me and share your thoughts in this contest.

Thank you for reading to the end.