Hey ! Beth, nice to meet you.
First, I gotta give credit to your agile sense because you noted that there should be a stative verb and actually you are right. Based on my limited experince, I do believe under most of the occasions, it´s the most correct to use a adjective instead of a verb. However, in some cases, a verb is also acceptable, just like 爱, while that's not so often to be seen. And what's more , if you use a 爱 here, generally it's recommended to supplement a obeject, for example, 我爱她爱得不得了, that's fine, but if the obejct has been pointed out before, it's OK to omit.
In conclusion, keep in mind that the adjective is OK under all circunstance, but don't use verb here unless you are so sure,just like 爱, or you have ever seen such a kind of frase in a dictionary o in a work authoritative. Anyway, Chinese is really a hard language to learn, but keep going on.
Best wishes.
Pablo