Perhaps Love

“Perhaps love is like a resting place, a shelter from the storm
It exists to give you comfort, it is there to keep you warm
And in those times of trouble when you are most alone
The memory of love will bring you home

Perhaps love is like a window, perhaps an open door
It invites you to come closer, it wants to show you more
And even if you lose yourself and don’t know what to do
The memory of love will see you through”
-John Denver

John wrote and sang a beautiful song that speaks somewhat to the human condition when it comes to this thing called love.  In our humanness we must constantly work on loving and being loved..it isn’t automatic.  I’ve heard a lot about “love at first sight”.  Even so, it’s not “boom, got ‘er done.”  Only Christ, on a cross, in that moment of love’s greatest expression and demonstration can proclaim “It is Finished”.  (John 19:30)

I’ve heard it said that people don’t really “fall in love”.  Those holding this view usually insist that love is really a choice we make.  We choose to love-period!  Plus nothing, minus nothing.  I personally believe that both falling and choosing are true. They are intertwined and together encompass “being in love”.

Pam and I will celebrate our 42nd anniversary this month, and we’ve known each other almost 45 years.  It is fact that when it comes to this “love” business that we both have made thousands of choices.  Choices that focus on our love for each other over the course of many years.  And those choices are what nourishes our love and causes it to continue to grow.

But I do remember and still cherish those memories of the first sight, the first date, the conversations and the getting to know each other.  Going places together, laughing, listening to our favorite songs, and just having fun. Then this indescribable, exciting, nervous, giddy feeling started slowly coming over me at certain times and special moments.  The frequency increased and one day I realized through all of this…“I’ve been falling…and I like it!”  Once I knew I was “falling”,   I started “choosing”, and also praying that Pam was “falling”.

If you want to accept love being 100% choosing, then that is absolutely fine.  Just don’t attempt to take away my falling-it’s too sweet and too real!  It’s not possible to pinpoint an exact time it happened, therefore it is a process.  Hence, falling-present tense; not fell-past tense.
Still ongoing!

Don’t let love die!  Water it with “falling”to keep it alive…vibrant and fresh.  Nourish it with “choosing” to give strength and allow new growth.

Best of all-God loves all of us and demonstrated His love through Christ while we were unlovely and unloveable.  A choice, yes!  God doesn’t need us, per se.  He is complete, lacking nothing.  So, our love for him adds nothing to him, and our lack of love for him takes nothing away from him.  But he chose and chooses to set his affections upon us, regardless.  He chooses to dwell with us and in us.  And that is love, because God is love.  He just is.

A line in a chorus I wrote a long time ago says
“I wish I could love Him as much as He loves me; Jesus Christ is everything I need”

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