would you rather...

I know we have all had the 'would you rather' discussion at one time or another.

Would you rather be able to fly or be able to breathe underwater?
Would you rather be lost in the artic or the desert?
Would you rather need to sleep at least 12 hours a day or need no sleep at all?
Would you rather be unvincible or be able to feel no pain?
Would you rather drink skim milk or pond water?

Typically, it is fun to be able to think about which one we would choose, its not like it would ever happen anyways. However, a couple of weeks ago we had this convorsation and this question came up:

Would you rather to love and lose or not to love at all?

At first the answer seemed pretty straight forward, of course you would pick to be able to love. After all the greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return. But on second thought, would you still want to allow yourself to love even though you knew you were going to lose them? It is safe not to love. Sure you will miss out on a lot, but you would also save yourself emense heartache.
Tonight at our devos it was pointed out that fear is the opposite of love. I can definately see why. If I would know that I was going to lose a person I love, I would become afraid to love them.
Love is a choice, every day we make a conscience decision to love the people around us. We are given the choice not to love. This aspect of love makes it so dangerous. You hear of so many married couples getting a divorse or long-time friendships becoming hogwash. Can people fall out of love? Can true friendship just fall to pieces? In my opinion, No. Somewhere along the line there was the decision not to love. We can control how we love, who we love, and what we love. We have control over this aspect in our lives - kinda scarey to think about eh?
However, the fact that we can choose to love gives it aspects that are so much more special, strong, and admirable. This makes love the greatest thing on the face of the earth. Love is able to conquer all because it is not based on feelings like the other 'emotions' we experience.

That is why I would choose to love and lose than not love at all.