What does it mean to truly love and to be loved?
It’s a question that has followed me more than once through different conversations. And if I’m honest, it used to frustrate me. No matter how I answered, someone would always suggest I was wrong, as if love had a single definition that I just hadn’t figured out yet.
But over time, I’ve realised that most people aren’t wrong when they answer that question. They’re just describing different layers of the same thing. Love is often understood in parts, shaped by experience – what we’ve had, what we’ve lacked, and where we’ve been hurt. And for a long time, my understanding of love came from those places too. It wasn’t wrong, but it wasn’t complete.
A lot of what we call love is actually built on things like validation, attraction, approval, and attachment.
We feel valued because someone chooses us.
We feel drawn to how someone looks or how they make us feel.
We feel accepted in their presence.
We fear losing them, so we hold on tightly.
None of these are bad but they’re fragile. They shift over time, and when they do, they can leave behind insecurity, comparison, and a quiet sense of rejection. What once feels like love can start to feel uncertain or even empty.
You can see this more clearly in the world around us now. So many people are searching for love in places that were never meant to hold it. Social media platforms have amplified the desire to be seen, admired, and affirmed. We put ourselves on display, often seeking significance from people who don’t truly know us. And in doing so, it’s easy to lose sight of what love actually is.
Comparison only deepens that tension. We measure our lives against others, trying to become more attractive, more successful, more acceptable, hoping that somehow, it will make us more worthy of being loved.
But real love doesn’t work like that.
Love, in its truest form, isn’t built on conditions that can easily change. It’s something deeper, steadier, and far more honest.
To truly love someone is to see them fully – their strengths, their flaws, their complexities and not turn away. It’s choosing them consistently, not just when it’s easy or convenient. It’s caring about who they are, not just what they can give you. It’s wanting their good, even when it costs you something.
It means letting go of the need to shape them into what you need them to be. Instead, you become steady rather than reactive. You begin to value their inner life – their heart – rather than just how they fit into your own.
And to truly be loved?
That’s something different altogether.
To be loved is to be received without needing to perform. It’s knowing you are not reduced to your appearance, your success, or your usefulness. It’s feeling safe enough to be fully yourself, not a version shaped by someone else’s expectations.
It’s being known, and still chosen.
That kind of love is genuine, not because it’s complicated, but because it requires depth, honesty, and maturity. It asks more of us than surface-level connection ever will.
This is why so many people spend their lives searching for it in imperfect places, hoping to find something unconditional in environments that are, by nature, conditional.
For me, the clearest picture of this kind of love is found in Jesus Christ. Not just in what He said, but in how He loves – freely, consistently, and without requiring worthiness first.
A love that sees the heart before anything else.
A love that remains, even when we fall short.
A love that isn’t earned, but given.
And maybe that’s what we’ve been trying to define all along.
Not just a feeling, or a connection, or a moment but something far more grounding.
A love that doesn’t shift with circumstances.
A love that doesn’t depend on performance.
A love that holds steady.
The kind of love people have always been searching for whether they realise it or not.
Because love is a deep state of the heart that is given freely.
“Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.”
1 Corinthians 13:4-7 NLT
“God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.”
1 John 4:9-12 NLT
“In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies. For a man who loves his wife actually shows love for himself.”
Ephesians 5:28 NLT
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