In love with Jesus who himself is love

I love cookie dough ice cream, writing and laughing. I love my family and friends, gazing at the night sky and Hanes V-neck T-shirts.

But my No. 1 love that runs so much deeper than anything in this world is Jesus. It blows my mind that a perfect man like him loves me back.

And I mean loves.

He says so in John 15:9: "I love you as the Father loves me."

He's not talking about casual acquaintance love or an only-there-for-the-pretty-parts love or the kind of love that is going to break up with me next week. Nope. He is here loving me with a full-out I-died-for-you-and-am-desperately-yearning-for-an-intimate-relationship-with-you love.

He wants all of me -- all of my hopes, dreams, fears and inadequacies. He knows how to love perfectly because he is love.

My life always comes back to learning this love.

It's true. Being loved is what I have always desired most. It's been hard for me to understand that Jesus loves me just as I am. I don't have to try to impress him or be even a smile more fake than who I am. When I'm sitting in class, he loves me. When I'm saying goofy things other people wouldn't say, he loves me. When I'm afraid to give him all of me, he loves me.

I want to spend my whole life learning what love is and isn't, because that means knowing the man who is love deeper and deeper. I want to spend my whole life loving other people in ways that reflect the love of this God who became a man to die for my life, who paints me sunsets every night and sends me telephone calls from friends when I'm crying. The God who has a sense of humor like a baby's laugh, a touch like a gentle breeze dusting my hair against my cheek and who is a love that is genuine. That's the man who is head-over-heels, passionately crazy in love with you and me.

All those hours throughout the years I spent daydreaming about being in love don't even compare to this love I'm experiencing now that I've given myself completely, no holding back, to the one my heart has always been aching for. OK, sometimes there are moments I hold back, but it's then that I realize I really need Jesus to even be able to trust him with my life. Since Jesus is love, it makes sense that I was in love with love before. But now, it's so much better.

I am in love with love himself.

Mia Pohlman is a Perryville, Mo., native studying at Truman State University. She loves performing, God and the color purple -- not necessarily in that order.