A Lot about Love

I've been thinking lately a lot about love. My thinking has been prompted by some pretty specific events, which are way too private for even me to write about, but nonetheless, it has made me think about what I think about love. Metacognating . . . don't you love it? (that's for you Doug Jackson)

I have seen some very incredible pictures of love in my life. The most recent was when I was in Colorado with my friends, the Tarbuttons, and every morning when she would come downstairs, and he would see her, he looked at her with the most incredible look, and she would look back at him the same way, and they would walk so quickly toward one another and then hug for the longest time, like they couldn't bear to break away. And he is 70 and she is close to that, and they have been married a long, long time.

Another love I have had the pleasure to witness was the love of my husband's parents, and his grandparents. When they lost their lifemates, I was almost certain they would die of a broken heart.

So often though, I hear people say they love each other, but I wonder . . . And I wonder that about myself sometimes. I might say, "I love you" but would people see me interact with those I love and believe it was true, even if they never heard me utter the words?

A very sweet and dear friend said to me once, this is how you know you love, if the pain of loss is so great that it feels like it might crush you or suffocate you. And yet, the pain of that loss is completely outweighed by the hope that love carries. I don't think I really understood that until recently.

God said this about love, "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast. It is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails."

So I read that passage in I Corinthians, and I think, well if all of that is true, then I have never loved, nor have I ever been loved. Because the love I know doesn't act like this all the time. And the love I give doesn't act like this. So does that mean I don't love at all, or that I am not loved?

But the Bible also says that "GOD is love." And I am not God, so my love isn't going to look like this all the time. But it's a picture of love He gave to us to know how we should love. And He also gave us Jesus so that we would understand forgiveness and grace when the love we give and receive isn't perfect.

All that to say, life isn't perfect. Love isn't perfect. We are not perfect. Sometimes we just don't get it right. And sometimes we get hurt. And our choice is to stop loving, to say we were never loved, or to believe in the hope of love.