Love Starved Generation

F**k this generation.

You weren't there when I learned how to ride a bike or when I learned how to tie my shoes. You missed me doing the little things in life.

Sometimes in order to survive you have to learn not to feel certain things. Sometimes you gotta build a wall around your heart with bricks stacked so high that someone with the world's most determination can't break it down. Sometimes when you start to get a feeling that you know is gonna break you down to the weakest person you can become, you have to shoot it between the eyes before it gets the chance to accomplish what it came to do.

Sometimes you gotta teach yourself to not care about certain things. You let your hopes fly higher than heaven's clouds and now that your hopes are too high for anyone to reach you've let your feelings out in the open where they're vulnerable. That's why you become friends with disappointment. So when they show up you were already expecting them.

See, I've built a wall around my heart, one so high and impenetrable that no one could climb over or tear it down. And when I get a feeling that I know is gonna strangle my soul and bring my knees to the ground I shoot it between the eyes with a silver bullet.

I want my head to be in the clouds. I want this weed to comfort me like a friend.

I don't understand why you all be acting like it's so hard to love a female, to show her love and affection instead of betrayal. I don't understand why they can't just be satisfied with one person. Why have four hoes when you could have one girl that could give your life purpose.

Why's the goal always got to be sex, to f**k her and then move onto the next. I don't understand why you can't give all the love you got to me. How about you drop all of your hoes cause I can play the role of all three?

Physically show me love. F**k me so good I feel valued. Be rough. Yet still be gentle like in your hands there's perched a dove.

Choke me and make it hard for me to breathe.

You weren't there when I learned how to ride a bike or when I learned how to tie my shoes. You missed me doing the little things in life.

These are the writings of a 16-year-old girl. When I read her words it broke my heart. How many other young girls are out there who feel the same way, trying to fill fatherless love voids by seeking the love and affirmation they should have gotten from their dads in the beds of young men and boys, only to find out their tank is still empty?

If I thought this was just an isolated case of a love jaded teen maybe it wouldn't affect me as deeply, but I know that it is not. I know it's much deeper than that and much more wide spread. I see it in the faces of those who are black. I see it in the faces of those who are white. I see it in those who are poor. I see it in those who are rich. I see it in those who are young. I see it in those who are old. I see empty eyes, hearts that have turned cold and have closed themselves off to the idea of love.

What has happened to our hearts that we no longer contain love?

They say a person can't give what they don't possess and I would agree. If a person has never been loved by those that should have loved them it is hard for this person to display this love to someone else.

For those that have been rejected, lied to, betrayed or abused by someone who you loved or should have loved you it's tempting to harden your heart and not be vulnerable or give your heart to anyone else for fear of being hurt again. But what we don't realize is that when we withhold our love from others we actually are hurting ourselves.

Why? Because we were made for love. We were made to love and to be loved. God, who is the essence of love, created us in His image and to be in relationship with Him. He created man and woman to be in relationship with one another and to have a family in order to be a physical extension of His love.

So, anytime this gets out of order and the family isn't operating the way it was designed, which is to love one another unconditionally, it creates a deficit in our souls. No matter what you believe or say, you were designed with an innate desire to be loved.

Whenever we operate outside of that design we are operating with a void, and when we go for extended periods of time with a love void we end up seeking to fulfill it in other ways. For some, they are able to find positive outlets to fill it - sports, music, spoken word, volunteering or ministry. But even with these positive outlets there is still a deficit.

For others, they may end up trying to fill it in other ways that are not beneficial. This is often how addictions and habits get formed. People use drugs, alcohol, sex, food, spending or other vices to numb the pain or fill the void. The only problem is after they've used the vice the love hole is still there and they need more and more of the vice to get the same "high" that only love can provide.

This is where we're at today - men and women on dating sites who choose "love" through a swipe of photoshopped, filtered pics and plan one-night sexcapades only to find out when they meet her there was a reason why all her pictures only showed her top half.

I admit I've tried the online dating sites, but never could last more than a few weeks at a time. I suppose I didn't have the patience to wade through the endless, shallow one word "hi" or "hello" introductions.

Ummm, what do you want me to do with that? If all you have is a "hi" or "hello" you're clearly not the conversationalist type and we're definitely not a match. Delete.

Or then there's the assembly line "You're beautiful" or "You're hot" one-liners.

How many other women did you tell that to? What makes me any different than any other woman you think is beautiful? Why do you want to talk to me besides the fact you think I look good? Did you even read my profile?

Then there was the texting that soon turned to sexting or the surprise d**k pics. No more explanation needed there. Block.

Then there were the texters who never seemed interested in having a phone conversation or the constant requests from guys asking you to send them pictures.

Let's see...I don't know you. We haven't even met. For the love of God, you may not even be real. You could be a 400-pound Catfish Creepy Harry who hangs out in the basement cellar with dead bodies, and you want me to send pictures of myself (sexy ones at that) to put in your cellphone collection pics of other chics?

Nooooo thank you.

At first I thought I just had really bad luck with men or maybe had gotten on some ratchet dating sites, but then I started hearing the stories of other women, all different colors and ages, who had similar stories, and then when I heard women in their fifties and even sixties saying the same thing I knew that something was desperately wrong.

We are living in a famine of love.

Despite the land mines that seem to be planted underground everywhere around the search for love these days, I've been able to survive their explosions and find positive outlets to fulfill some of my own deficits; but what about this next generation? Where are they going to find love if those of us who have been wounded by this war on love build walls around our hearts; If we hold grenades next to our hearts, ready to pull the pin the minute we suspect rejection or pain?

How will this next generation know what it looks like if none of us display it? If we don't stick around long enough to make It through an argument or fight? If all we do is take and never give? If we hold back our hearts and our lives for fear of being betrayed or used?

Love is kind. It is giving. It is long suffering. It provides. It protects. It sacrifices. It endures. It commits. It's loyal. It is not jealous. It wants what is best for the other person. It is honest. It is caring. It is thoughtful. It stays when it would be easier to leave.

How often do we see this being displayed today? It is rare indeed, and if you find it, treasure it because it doesn't come along often.

But what if you can't find someone to give it to you? Then I say give it. Find someone or something that you can pour your love into. Just because you can't find someone to love you the way you want to be loved isn't an excuse to be a love hoarder.

Because we were created for love, we were created to give it. So storing unused love is like trying to store produce to use five months later. It gets stale and rots. The more we withhold our love the blacker our hearts get. I've seen it time and time again, hurt people who stop loving; without realizing it they become angry, bitter, unforgiving and turn into a black hole that sucks all the energy and love around them inside their all consuming love deficit.

Eventually no one wants to be around them because they're a love hoarder. They take in all the love others give them, but they never give any back. Visiting their lives is like flying over the Bermuda Triangle - love disappears never to be seen again.

So if you find yourself in a love deficit, start to give it. You may not get it back in the exact way you desire it, but I have found that when I give it I get it back in different ways. One of the ways I decided to wage a war on this love deficit is to love those that many say are unlovable. Every week, twice a week for the last six years I've gone to a men's maximum-security prison to share with these men the love of God, and it's amazing how God shows me His love back through these men.

I can't tell you how many times I've had a discouraging week and these men will lift me up and encourage me. There have been times when I've been frustrated with God for prayers that have gone unanswered for years, and one of the men who's serving a 53 year sentence will come into class smiling and talk about trusting God, and I'll think, "If he can be positive and trust God with a 53 year sentence, surely I can trust God."

Or like just last week when the little devil got on my shoulder and told me, "You're not making any difference. Why are you doing this? Your labor is in vain," and before we ended class one of the men without knowing what my inner demons were saying to me prayed, "Lord, thank you for sending us Julie. We appreciate her giving her time to us for the last six years. Let her know that she is making a difference in our lives and there is a reward coming to her for all of her sacrifice and dedication to us men."

So yes, there may be a famine of love in the land, but I am a firm believer that if you take the little seed of love that exists in your heart and you pour it out and plant it in the hearts of others it will grow, and eventually it will come back to you.

If love can grow in the hearts of some of society's most hardened criminals I am certain it can grow in yours also. You just need to open it up to receive and then pour it out on those around you.