Why You Should Still Keep Listening to Love Songs

Being a Hopeless Romantic is pretty much one of my most defining characteristics. I have a long list of crushes with unique code names that either never found out that I liked them or rejected me. I have the longest love song playlist out of most of my friends. I honestly cannot remember the last time I was without a major crush dominating my mind.

For the past semester I have been sitting around without a crush. As I said, I don't remember the last time that happened.There are two responses to this situation in society.

Back on the Horse
The first is to stop sitting around, jump in to the bars, and do everything you can to find the right man. People assume that if there isn't a romantic aspect to your life story that something is wrong with you. They ask you who you like over and over, just to see if you were hiding something before. They tell you that there has to be someone.

Think about it.

When was the last time you saw a movie without a love story in it? Even the action movies have romantic implications that do nothing to further the plot.

If you aren't in love, then something is wrong with you.

No one wants something to be wrong with them.

In the past, I would immediately jump back to the first person that would spark my interest. This resulted in returning my feelings to boys that hurt me. The most recent of these boys ended up really breaking my heart, simply by pure apathy. On the day I decided to leave that place of feeling (I wouldn't say relationship), an empty feeling consumed my heart. I realized something:

Forcing love out of an apathetic situation does nothing but warp your image of love further 

It makes you think that something about your love is wrong. You don't do it right. You have to get better at loving someone. You don't know what love is. These are all the thoughts that I experienced as I tried to figure out my place in these situations.

As a result, I turned to response two:

Independent Woman Who Don't Need No Man.
The nature tendency in this situation is to cut all ties to love stories, music, and all other things. Women are constantly being told that if we choose to be romantics and feel too much that we will never be taken seriously. We are told over and over that if we want to make it that we need to ignore the men.

An obvious example of society's rejection of women focused on love is Taylor Swift. How many jokes do we hear about how boy crazy she is? How many times is she looked down upon because the majority of her work reflects the relationships that she has experienced?

Choosing to listen to love songs and cry with a pint of Ben and Jerry's is no longer an accepted option unless you have been dumped. And even then you are expected to get back to normal within a week. That means you have to cut out the love songs, the movies, the books, the ice cream, the feelings, and everything that you could ever equate with too much of this "feminine weakness."

Now remember that I entered this stage after warping my image of love. Romance was worthless for me because I was incapable of loving someone properly, or so I thought.

I thought my feelings were a sign of deep weakness.

Weakness does not give you a PhD.

Love songs do not get you to a PhD.

Feeling did not get me anywhere closer to a PhD.

Suddenly my giant library was nothing but Christian music and rap.

An Odd Combination Worth Remembering
Oddly enough, there is a common theme in both of these genres: Confidence. Christian music reflects the confidence that we receive from God. It tells us that we can be confident in His promises and that everything is going to be ok. Christian music allows us to feel closer to God and feel His hand on our shoulder when life gets difficult.

"And he'll break 
open the skies to save 
those who cry out his name 
the One the wind and waves obey
is strong enough to save you"

~Strong Enough to Save (Tenth Avenue North)

Rap music may not have the same morals, but there is a lot of confidence in rap music. Nearly every rapper has to mention that he can and will do everything. There is no person that can stop a rapper from succeeding. Rap music allows us to feel like we can do whatever we set our mind to.

"Na-na-na that that don't kill me
Can only make me stronger
I need you to hurry up now
'Cause I can't wait much longer"

~Stronger (Kanye West...keeping it cleanish)

I realized that I could not keep letting my broken heart take away part of my identity. Just because those boys broke my heart did not mean that I could not find love.

And so I typed the word, "Love" in my music search.

I found Love by Jana Kramer.

Love, how many times can a heart break?
Love, how much weight can a soul take?
Love, I don’t know where you ran off to 
But love, love, love, I still believe in you.

Yes, it hurts a lot to be rejected time and time again.

Yes, I was asked what went wrong.

Yes, it is hard to get back to normal.

Yes, I wanted to quit for much longer.

But all I really wanted was to find the love that I know exists. I see it every day through my amazing parents. I see it in my friends who have had long standing relationships. I see it in my little brother and his girlfriend. I see it everywhere I go.

It used to discourage me to see all of this love and not be able to participate. Then I remembered something: I knew love was real.

If you know something is real, then you can believe in it.

Belief
Isn't it more powerful to believe in something? Think about how beautiful it is to believe in something and finally see it happen.

Imagine a football team that started out their season with a losing record and being scorned by their community. Imagine their coach telling them that they could make it to state and win. Imagine them working hard, winning more games, and finally winning at state.

Love is the same.

Isn't is more of a testimony to "The One" if you keep fighting through the heartache in order to get where you need to go? Isn't it a chance to prove that there are no limitations in this world? Isn't it a chance to prove everyone wrong? Isn't it a chance to say that you are worth more than what you used to believe?

Aren't all of these opportunities a chance to be powerful?

Yes.

Belief is power.

Power
There is a power that I have not described yet. It is clear that believing in something is a chance to prove power, but there is a power that is above all other powers. It is what makes all things possible, what makes our lives greater, what gives us a chance to fight through the pain. It is is this power that makes life better.

Belief in God is the greatest power that man may ever possess.

God does not let you fail. He is building a life for you that is greater than anything you can imagine. He sent people to this world to help you along the way. He made the musicians that wrote those love songs, and He made music so that we could connect in a way that no other medium may ever be able to. He made dancers so the emotions we feel may be expressed through movement.

He gave us hearts that are able to feel everything.

Feelings like those of humanity are something that are unique to our race. It is a God give gift to feel.

Not believing in these feelings is shunting the power God could channel through them.

By removing the love songs from my library, I was refusing to feel what God was allowing me to feel.

Last week, I started playing all of my old playlists. And as soon as I started to let myself feel again, even if it is not directed towards anyone, I felt myself coming back together. I was able to work on my experiments with the excitement that I used to have. I felt confident in my ability to do anything. I felt like I was going to succeed, even though I was the least likely to succeed in my lab. All because I let God's gift run through me again.

Because I choose to believe in love

Because I choose to believe in myself

Because I choose to believe in God...

I am able to do anything.

So...

Love, love, love, I still believe in you.