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How I Came to Understand Love as a Daily Choice
From the time I was young, I found myself looking for Love. Not because I didn’t have Love surrounding me, but because I was curious about it. I noticed where Love was present, how it worked, and the difference it made in people’s lives.
For two decades, I worked in the field of child abuse prevention. When people hear the words child abuse, they sometimes stop listening before they hear the most important word: prevention.
What I discovered was that, at its heart, preventing child abuse was about helping families learn to love and care for one another. It was about helping them make Love the cornerstone of their everyday lives, developing the skills, support, and confidence to create homes where everyone could thrive.
My work with the Alabama Children’s Trust Fund took me across the state, into cities, small towns, schools, agencies, and family homes. I served as a field director, program director, and consultant, working alongside people dedicated to strengthening families and breaking cycles of abuse.
One visit, in particular, has stayed with me.
I was visiting a family living in a mobile home in one of Alabama’s poorest counties. Much of the flooring had deteriorated, and rats had made their way into the kitchen sink. As they moved among the dishes, I kept jumping, half expecting one to leap into my lap!
But what I remember most vividly isn’t the condition of that home.
It’s the Love I witnessed there.
The young mother had been working at night and was asleep beside her tiny newborn baby. The grandmother welcomed us into the home. She had been sweeping the floor, even though much of that floor was gone.
Everything I saw told me that this family was doing its best to protect and care for that precious child. They were working, nurturing, and doing what they could with the resources they had.
A home visitor and parent educator was coming regularly, helping the family build new skills, strengthen their relationships, and create a safer, more supportive environment for their baby.
I remember wishing I could bring every member of the Alabama Legislature into that home. Our prevention programs were funded primarily through the state, and I wanted those decision-makers to witness what I had witnessed: a family deserving of support, working toward a better future, and people coming alongside them to help make that possible.
That experience was one of many that shaped my understanding of Love.
It wasn’t a single moment of revelation. It was something I came to understand over years of working with families in circumstances as different as the places they called home.
Love was always present, but not always known.
I began to see that Love was more than an emotion or something we hoped would happen to us. Love could be a conscious choice. It could be practiced, strengthened, expressed, and brought into everyday life through our actions.
And when families were supported in making those choices, they could begin to change patterns that had sometimes existed for generations.
My work was not simply about preventing something harmful. It was about helping people discover and strengthen something life-giving.
That understanding became one of the foundations of The Lovist Handbook: A Guide for Living Love.
Today, I call someone who consciously chooses to live, promote, and share Love a Lovist.
And after all these years, I am still looking for Love, noticing where it is present, and discovering new ways to practice it.
Because living Love isn’t something we accomplish once and for all.
It’s a choice we get to make again and again.