Love
Yes, it’s almost Valentine’s Day, but that isn’t why I have love on the brain. This isn’t a place where I drop ideas about romantic dates with candlelight and heart-shaped pizza, but it’s a place where I wonder about what love looks like. The past several weeks in the midst of an evolving faith, transitions at work, and pandemic perseverance, I am finding love way less in folks that are trying to lead (or preach at) me and way more in folks that want to walk alongside me as I find my own way. Love can show up in many forms, but here are a few ways it has shown up for me.
Love and Marriage
Someone on Twitter was recently collecting love stories and asked folks to share how they met their spouse. It brought back memories of the place where I met Sean. We had both ended up at a party where we knew no one except the person that brought us, and everyone else knew everyone else. Somehow, we found each other in the crowd and bonded over our mutual solitude. The party was at a Chicago apartment in the winter, and Sean noticed that I kept sneaking off to smoke a cigarette on the balcony in the frigid weather. Smoking was a habit I had picked up after college, despite the fact that I had already discovered the joy of running marathons and knew running and smoking couldn’t share space in my life for long. Sean hated smoking for all the right health reasons, but he wanted to talk to me that night so he found someone with cigarettes and offered to keep me company outside while I smoked. After we started dating, he patiently waited for me to find healthy habits on my own and eventually I chose running over smoking. The fact that he loved me without trying to force me to change makes me know even still that he’s exactly who I need as a partner.
Love and Friendship
There are seasons in life that are too difficult to manage on your own and even sometimes too difficult for your partner to carry you through. Over the years I’ve relied on a network of women (and, at times, therapists) that have reached out to grab my hands and pull me out of the depths when I feel like I’m drowning. These are women that know the core of who I am and love me anyway. These are women that read a text and call immediately because they know without me saying that I wrote the text through tears. These are women that don’t say, “I know how to fix you,” or even “What do you need?” but a simple “I’m here.”
Last week I had a pretty rough day and one of these friends read between the lines of my social media posts and reached out to see if I wanted to talk.
“I don’t have therapy until tomorrow,” I replied. “You’ll likely be getting a rough version of me.”
“I’m happy to listen if that’s what you need,” she responded. It was absolutely what I needed.
It’s not always darkness that pulls the bond together, but it’s always the presence of support and encouragement. I always say that authenticity is my love language, but the only way that we are given permission to be authentic is if we receive it in return and if we are in a safe space where our true selves will be accepted and loved.
Love and Faith
When I was in college I listened to a popular worship song called “One Thing” by Charlie Hall. The piece of this song that I carried with me over the years in journals and prayers was this line:
All of life comes down to just one thing and that’s to know You, Oh Jesus, and make You known.
Not only is that line sprinkled throughout the past twenty years of my journals, but it was on my laptop wallpaper for the better part of 2020. But recently, something has changed. I no longer see this line the same way, and I no longer identify with its meaning. As I read, study, unpack, dig in, and find my way to what is truth and what is real, the new phrase that I cling to is equally simple in its meaning but it doesn’t come from a worship song. It comes from the mouth of Jesus.
Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
Matthew 22:37-40
Moving from “knowing God and making Him known” to “loving God and loving others” has been a profound shift for me. The two phrases are vastly different. One implies knowing truth and making sure everyone else follows that same truth. The other acknowledges that what you see as truth might differ from someone else, and gives room for everyone to find their own way.
I am not always great at love. I can be selfish, prideful, exhausted, busy, consumed, or just get it wrong. I don’t think it matters though whether we’re great at it. I think what’s important is that we know what love is supposed to look like and we do our best to open our eyes to the opportunities we have to love those around us.
