I’ve been thinking about love tonight. I’ve realised so much of what I have thought was love was really fear and control. I used to always think that love was when you can’t live without another person. I think I was wrong.

I was in that place and I turned into a really selfish person. Jealousy and insecurity plagued me constantly. I thought I loved this person more than anyone when really I had them trapped and controlled and if they wanted to go a different path I would have a fit until they went on whatever path I was on. Their life revolved around me and ultimately we sucked the life out of each other.

I was thinking about the way parents have to let go of their children when they reach a certain age. They have a choice to either let them spread their wings and fly so to speak or else they can choose to hold on to them out of fear and hold them back. The irony is that the relationship they so desperately want with their kids is actually found in freedom not fear. After all the people who avoid their parents phone calls are the ones who feel their parents are still holding them back and trying to control them.

I’ve actually come to see all love as being a bit like that. True loves takes a massive risk. The risk of freedom.

You have to give the other person freedom to love you or hate you. Freedom to be with you or to leave you. To really let someone spread their wings and fly means that you have to face the fear that they will fly away and go somewhere else.

So what does love look like?

Maybe it looks like caring about their relationship with God more than how you feel about them? Maybe its about letting them be themselves even if that means they don’t spend as much time with you anymore?

Kirk Franklin has a line in one of his songs that says - Mama said, what you love, let it go. And if it comes back, then its back to stay.

I also wrote my own words of wisdom in a song when I was 13 - Love doesn’t need to hold on to be real or to be strong.

That’s how I feel right now. Love can’t be about control. It can’t be based on my fear. True love is letting go despite my fear. It’s knowing that the greatest contribution you can give to someone is that they don’t need you anymore. That they have their own strength and value and life that you helped them to find.

So I’m learning to love. And I’m learning how to let go.