This is Love
Love
I use the word love a lot.
I love coffee. I love audiobooks. I love the ocean. I love hearing my son’s laugh. I love holding my husband’s hand.
Love labels these, and so many other things I hold dear, from my favorite foods to my favorite movies to my favorite cities, books and songs.
Love.
The word itself is a tiny little thing, as words go.
It takes up such minimal space on the page, yet with one small syllable it can trigger the kind of emotional response that wages wars, sinks ships and births generations.
Love.
Love to Compare
There are synonyms-a-plenty that exist to help us make better sense of the little word with the big meaning: fondness, passion, enjoyment, appreciation, adoration, doting and delight, to name a few.
They fit the bill for endless categories of people, places, and things that you or I may have a penchant for (threw another one in there just for fun).
But when I attempt to explain or even just ponder the meaning of God’s love in my life, my inner love thesaurus fails me. The words all fall short.
Because experiencing God’s love leaps eons beyond good pizza toppings and New York Times bestsellers.
God’s love saved my life.
God’s love takes the sting out of my bad decisions. It gives me what I don’t deserve and absorbs the wrath of what I do.
God’s love sent His only Son to die for me, and pay the price for my foolish fumbles, past, present and future.
God’s love sent the gift of His Holy Spirit to comfort me and to help me live for Him in a world rife with deceptive snares and stumbling blocks.
God’s love sent the gift of His Holy Word to remind me of who He is for moments when I may forget.
Every single tangible thing that I happen to love, is mine to love because of Him.
Love Story
Something my mother said to me years ago, when the internet was in the earlier stages of wowing the world, reminds me of that truth.
One day, she looked over my shoulder as I was using AIM (that’s AOL Instant Messenger for anyone under twenty-five. It’s how we sent texts pre-smartphone).
She saw me chatting back and forth with someone who lived about three thousand miles away and her immediate response was, “Well, how do you like that?! God’s given man so much wisdom!”
I love (adding to my list) that memory of my mom.
She was unapologetic about her God view of the world. She’d express it all the time without ever seeming pompous or pretentious, just thankful and amazed. Full of wonder.
She gave the AIM tech credit to God before a Gates or a Jobs or anyone from team AOL back then because she knew that ultimately, it was God’s omniscience at the workbench of it all.
That’s the way I view all of the love that’s been woven into in my life. God has been at the workbench of it all.
Love Divine
I can’t escape the love of God. It’s everywhere I turn.
My husband’s hands.
My son’s laugh.
The vivid memories of my mother.
Forgiveness.
Redemption.
Salvation.
Eternal life.
It’s infinite and immeasurable and incomprehensible and perfect.
Perfect for me. Perfect for you. Perfect for us all.
We love because he first loved us.
-1 John 4:19 (CSB)