Lost a First Love, or Forsaken the Love you had at First?

Is there a difference between the two statements of this post’s title?
On first look, it may appear as if both statements are describing the same thing. But, I’m starting to think that there is a big difference between the two statements.

To put this into context properly, I feel there is a need to quote the orginal passage that I am referring to, as I’m posing my thoughts.

Revelation 2:4
⁴ Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first.

In order to understand the full scripture, it would be good to read Revelation 2:1-7. But my thoughts are going to be on verse 4, in particular. (The full passage is the letter to the church in Ephesus.)

I believe that I have inadvertently, been miss quoting this passage to myself, for quite a while now. 😦
I didn’t mean to, but I think it has just crept in.

Whenever I thought about Revelation 2:4, I have thought of it as if it was losing a first love.
But is the passage actually saying this?

The words that the passage uses are, “You have forsaken the love you had at first.”

A first love is exciting, all consuming, and if we are going to be really honest with ourselves, if it carries on for too long, it can be exhausting.
A good first love, if it follows a good path, will grow into a more mature love. Not a lost love or a love that burns out, but a love that knows a sustainable pace.
I’m thinking of an old ox being yoked to a young ox, where the old ox sets the pace, effectively saying, “In order to last the day, this is the pace you need to go at.”

I hoping that you are able to see the difference that I’m trying to show.
A first love, isn’t necessarily meant to last, but hopefully it will bloom into a mature love, that builds on itself, that does last.

So, can you see that there could be a difference between losing a first love, and forsaking the love you had at first? (Whether that love was a first, adolescent or mature love.)

I really do feel as if I’m splitting hairs here, but I also feel that it is a difference that matters.

When I think of a love that has been forsaken, I think of the nuns in the film Philomena.
The nuns were doing, what could be considered a loving thing, by taking in young pregnant unmarried women, in a time when they were not accepted by society.
But, the nuns appear to have become worn out and frustrated from the hardships of caring for the women, so that they then resented them. It’s seems that they lost any love, for the young women, who were in a difficult situation.

You could say that, the nuns were doing a loving thing, by taking the women in, without any love, by allowing frustrations to be the driving force, in there actions.

Could this be a picture of doing a loving thing, without any love in it?
Forsaking the love you had at first?

If there is any doubt about how bad it could be, to be doing a loving act, without love being the driving force, well, I think that the scripture below, removes all doubts.

1 Corinthians 13
13 If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

⁸ Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. ¹¹ When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. ¹² For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.