The experience of loving is unilateral.
It asks no response, nor does it demand the other be deserving. Any and every human being deserves love. It is not earned, one deserves it.
So every human being offers us the opportunity of loving them. The loving rewards, not the being loved. Being made the image of God, each of us deserves love. Our loving is our striving toward Godliness. It is our privilege, not our duty. Love has no rewards beyond the experience of it, nor does it require any.
“I love you,” is most deeply a feeling, then an activity, and least of all, words. As words, it is often used to stop loving or reassure, or push away. When the feeling forms the words, the words are not merely heard, but are seen and touched. As a feeling, it brings the loved into being and the lover to the experience of another being. Either is beautiful; experienced together, they create.
The feeling of love arises out of your person, unreasonably and wonderfully thrusting itself on, and contagiously evoking response in the other. When felt unreservedly without hesitance, shame, or fear, the loved has no choice to love. The slightest hesitance or most meager reservation in loving can undo. If the love feeling in you does not evoke a love response, chastise not the other, but look into your own heart to find wherein your loving lacks fullness or is crippled by your hesitance.
Many good and bad feelings are mistaken for love. Caring for, forgiveness of, tolerance of, infatuation with, dependence on, feeling close to, being friendly with, going to, accepting from, sacrificing to, being excited by, being in love with, (and many others). These are not only not love, but are seldom part of loving. They are part of but not loving of.
Thomas Malone, M.D. The Importance of I Love You
