The Perfect Love

I don't pretend to know a lot about love, but with 10 15-17 year olds that's all they want to talk about. First kiss stories, the ideal date, and such ideas of everlasting love that every teenager desires are the conversations that fill my cabin nearly every day.
"Katelyn who are you attracted to? What should we look for in a relationship?"
 Such questions overwhelm me, because I'm not an expert. I haven't maintained a relationship for more than four months because quite frankly I used to stink at it. I used to not understand how to love people because for a long time I, myself, thought I was unlovable. I am unworthy of the love that my Savior shows me, and so I struggled for a long time to fight such feelings that the Devil filled my head with. Quite frankly I am lovable. I am desirable. I am wanted by the King, my Creator, the very God who sent his own son to die for me. It took me a long time to realize this, and I get frustrated even today when for a moment I let the Devil have a foothold. When the Devil makes his way into my thoughts and for a minute convinces me that no one would ever want me, I turn to God. It is through God that I know I am loved and that I can see the most beautiful love story. No, Jesus doesn't take me on a late night picnic and stargaze with me in the bed of the perfect truck as my girls most certainly wish he would, but he did something even better. He died for me, and for every single one of my girls. He died so that I could have the opportunity to teach them that true love doesn't look like a perfect first kiss, or a perfect date, but instead looks like acts of selflessness. Perfect love empowers you to be all that you can possibly be. It doesn't hinder you, discourage you, but instead it builds you up. I am grateful that I have had the opportunity to share this with my girls this far into the session. I am thankful that I am able to love on them, and help them realize that no matter what happens to them in life or what they do, they are lovable. It has been such a blessing to teach and show them how perfect love isn't of this world, but instead is something that is eternal. What began in death and resurrection, will end with an eternity with our Savior. That to me is the perfect love that I am trying to teach my girls this week.