Love is
patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not
proud. It does not dishonor others, 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. But where
there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they
will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 1 Cor. 13 : 4-8
Yes, you and me both. I have heard these words at every wedding we
have ever attended. I have heard the
preacher say them too. The preacher
reads them whenever he gets down in the trenches and talks about the way we
should live, love and breathe the air of life.
I would admit though, even
after 27 years of marriage, I am still
learning this crazy word LOVE.
When you marry, you think
you finally “get it.” We have given
and received something divine. It is
miraculous and it is holy.
Then that first baby comes
along. And the lessons begin anew. Our baby is our teacher and our classroom
opens before dawn and the lessons continue until the wee hours of the
night. This love is not soon returned.
We wait for the first smile,
the first impromptu kiss, the first neck strangling hug and we are
addicted. And, we want more. We want our babies to feel love, to know love,
to have more of the things they love.
We build fantasies for
these little babies of ours. We want
them to live in kingdoms of princesses and on imaginary battlefields where good
always wins. We want to shield them from sadness and surround them with joy.
But ever slow slowly, as
months turn to years and their beautiful little eyes look outward, we realize
we cannot fashion their lives filled exclusively with love. Evil creeps in, sadness too. Fantasy ever so slowly becomes tainted with
reality and love must find its home not in toys and trinkets but in deep spaces
in the heart.
And the mama takes a long
deep breath and wonders if she has really taught about the love that never
fails.
The love that is patient
and kind.
My wee daughter, the fourth
of my babies lay in her hospital bed.
She had just seconds before awoke from her surgery. As her eyes open she thrashed the braces off
her arms trying to touch the face that had just been altered with a surgeon’s
knife. I explained quickly and in the
most whispered of tones that it was all over.
This day that I had feared for three years was done. She was breathing and well and beautiful.
She hushed me with her eyes;
she took her hands and framed her cheeks.
She waved her fingers from her nose to her mouth and in her raspy, tired
voice said, “Mama, I do not love this.”
That is my daughter. Her life at 5-years old is a series of black and
white events and my heart broke just a little bit that I could not take away
the pain, the need to recover, the needle in her arm, and the
stitches. Nothing. I could not make her love an unlovable
situation.
The little princess that
plays castles and ponies could not imagine her way out of this and neither
could I.
I laid my head next to her for a long moment
as she closed her eyes and fell back to sleep.
I wondered how it is our search for this thing called love skips right
over the Creator of Love.
I fill my home with lovely
things. I cram my weekend with lovely
events. But it is moments. Moments of pain, frustration, exhaustion, and
failure; the moments we run madly from,
that teach us the meaning of both life and love.
Strange how there is
nothing quick or easy about patience.
Love is kind.
It is not romance or dates
or candlelit paths.
Love is simple.
It is warm tea and random.
It does not boast or seek
for itself, but am I not in constant hunt for this elusive love. Perhaps I look in the most wrong of
places. Perhaps I hunt in markets or
media, when all I have ever needed of love is welled within my soul.
If it truly “always
protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres,” isn’t that my clue
to the treasure of Him. I cannot
manufacture anything that is ALWAYS.
Only He can.
And if this treasure is
within us, is it not already found and meant to be shared not sought?
I kiss my little daughter. I kiss her forehead and her hands and I pray
for her. I pray that in these moments
where I am completely and totally helpless, she discovers where her strength
comes from and will ALWAYS persevere.
No Ava, I can do nothing,
but Jesus, the Lover of your life and soul, can.
He is the wellspring of
love, the furnisher of healing and the author of peace. He never fails.
Let all that
you do be done in love.
1 Cor. 16:14
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