Love...are we doing this right?

  Currently everyone is still asleep except for me. Sometime this summer I began something with my oldest, Manny, that has become sort of our expression with one another. It’s extended to all my kids now and includes the hubby as well.  Now many of you who are reading have children, and even if you don’t you have said these three words: I love you.  Now these three words are used so often that lets be truthful here, there has been a loss of meaning to them. 

Love is defined as:

  * an intense feeling of deep affection

  * a great interest and pleasure in something.

Now I understand that earthly meaning. However as I am walking with the Lord I have come to understand love in a different manner.

“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.”

‭‭1 Corinthians‬ ‭13:1-3‬ ‭ESV‬‬

That is followed by some poignant verses, of which many of us may have utilized during matrimony or to teach our children something.

  Now you may be thinking to yourself , okay if love is all of those things then I may not be loving the right way. To be honest we could try to the ends of the earth to exemplify those characteristics of love and never quite reach them. So I’m going to let you in on not such a secret: Jesus. You see the truth is that God loved us so much that he sent himself down, in human form, as His son Jesus. To live amongst men and to call those who were so focused on keeping the law of land they forgot who allowed man to make law. In saying all this you must understand that God’s love is what he try’s to have us replicate. I know that I don’t always portray love in a sacrificial way, however now that I have children I would say that has changed. As I would be willing to sacrifice myself for their sakes. 

I speak of love in part that the thing Manny and I started related to us saying how much we love each other. 

So I may start off as follows:

I love you all the way, all the way, all the way (multiple times of all the ways) to the stars, moon and sun in the sky. As I say this I may use my hands in attempt to reach towards the sky. 

My sweet son in reply may respond: well I love you mom way more than that. 

I then come back to reply, well then I’m the luckiest mom in the whole world!

He rebuts and states: nuh uh, I’m lucky!

Can you believe that, my son feeling lucky  to love me that way?

Now this is no competition, it’s just our way of saying ‘I love you’! Of course Mia does her best to share in our ‘I love you’ and I just adore it, and wouldn’t change it for anything in the world. 

What I have come to see from a better position the mother who loves her child so much that there is a willingness to do anything. Including sacrificing yourself for their sake. 

So as you share your own ‘I love you’ with your loved ones, ask yourself. 

*Am I loving like God?

*Am I exemplifying the traits of love?

*Am I doin everything else except showing and possibly experiencing love?

Homework! I know boo! I’m sure that’s not why you signed up for this blog. But I just wanted to remind you that on 11/7/19, I got the news that my son, my sweet 5 month old Emerson had some cancerous process going on in his body and brain. That it was urgent to come back to the hospital to be admitted and start treatment, which would include being put under anesthesia, poked and prodded, receiving chemo through port and spine and  countless other measures. In that moment me loving Mac, was far from some emotional state. I was going to move mountains for him, I would sacrifice for him, as I would for any one of my kids. 

Tomorrow we are headed back into the hospital, at least for the night. I will write more on those details. 

Father God,  thank you for your amazing love. There is no way that I could ever replicate your love for me for my children, yet I desire to. Lord may your love pour out of me in all that we do. Amen

Listen: reckless love