I was driving home this afternoon thinking about love. How it's "measured". How it's given and taken. How I give and take it. I started thinking about how my view of love has changed. Started thinking how naive I was and how the reality of the world has sunk into my brain. It's not always pretty and never easy.
Love that needs no introduction begins at birth. I'm not talking about the baby. They don't love you.....they need you. They have no concept of love. I'm talking about the mommy side of things. After carrying the little person around for 9 months under my heart, I just love them. Their every breath is fantastic, every sigh note worthy. Even when they cry....nothing can change the love. I so LOVE these daughters....amazingly I just realized within the last year that's how my mom loves me! Ponder that a moment, folks. Your mom loves you.....
Moving forward in time we reach young teenage love. Sigh. Everything roses and twitterpation and flutterbys. Can you hear the swell of musack? UGH. Not reality! Teenagers have filters for everything from conversations to sex. I have to remember when chatting with our girls it's "teen filtered" and truth may not be what it seems. They think (I did) that it's FOREVER! And that they've met the ONE. And he will love them ALWAYS. Or maybe that they will love him always. They measure in notes, and whispers and hand holding. They measure in how many times he says "I love you". And when the Holy Spirit says "Nope, not him" and they decide to obey after almost 4 months, they are the ones who break the heart. The good thing is, her heart is broken too. Sometimes, it's not always what we want to do, but what we NEED to do. And that can hurt just as much. As a teen, we put people on pedestals, make them our reason for living and breathing. That's a precarious position. Those pedestals are stone and can be broken. And if you're on it's harder to get off. Teens give away their "I love you"s easily. We caution against it....doesn't mean they listen.
As an adult, most people have had their heart broken at least once. By a parent, a spouse, a boyfriend/girlfriend or just a friend. Sometimes it's not about WHO the relationship is with. We become cautious, loving only when we feel worthy. Yet still, we hold something back. A little piece of ourselves, thinking we can recover if someone hurts us as long as we don't give it all. As for me, I measure. I measure Matt's love in silly ways. Like(don't laugh): wether he lets me take his nice new android phone with me to California so I can map the wait time for lines at Disneyland. He won't. STRIKE ONE! Like: Well, actually that's pretty much it right now. Good thing, because I don't know what I would do if he made it to STRIKE THREE! hahahhahaha, just kidding. I luf him. But, I still have been measuring....putting up an ideal and expectation. Do the kids do that with me? Measure how much time I do or don't spend with them and equate that to how much I love them??? I hope not! One girl asked me if love gets easier. I answered her honestly. I said NO. It doesn't. When you're young and dating, it's easy to walk away. When you've gotten married....well, you can't walk away without wounds. It's not easy to say goodbye to someone you've dated for a while, but it's devestating to leave someone you've been married to or be left by them. The sorrow from loving the wrong person can follow you. The joy of loving the right person....well that's just a gift from God. But how do you know, you may ask. Well, don't get ahead of God. He'll let you barrel right down the road into the life He didn't want for you. Pray....be willing to listen....be willing to wait. We can't measure by flutterbys, or feelings. At this stage, love is a decision. I want the girls to experience life, to be loved and to love. I want them to know joy and I want them to not measure. Sometimes, a pinch of this and a pinch of that is what's needed.....and sometimes it's ok to step outside the box and create a new ideal.
As always, the ultimate love is God. They are His brides....I pray they will honor Him.
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