Perhaps Love Is Like my Children

Fall In Love, Why Do We?

Who knows why? Does there have to be a reason? I fell in love when I was 17 years old. It wasn’t in my plans. I had the next 6-8 years of my life planned exquisitely-get the heck out of high school, work hard, college, master’s degree and soon enough I would be a nurse practitioner. I was certain I would be capable of doing anything including graduating with precriptive rights by the age of 24.
Ha.

I fell in love like I said. “Fell” is exactly the right verbage too. It was like tripping and falling over a crack in the sidwalk! And, when you land on your face and look up, you feel completely different about yourself and the world. Since this is a romantic story I guess there was a handsome prince standing there to pick me up. Except we fell together.

I threw my plans out. I made a new plan to be a loving wife. I loved my new plan. I set about to be a good lover, a good loving wife and the lovliest friend to him. I am sure I fell short. All this falling really does get tiresome and surely we would have done things differently in retrospect.

I don’t understand “love”. I don’t even know why I love another. But, some of the most beautiful words about love (that I have seen) are contained in the following verses:

Perhaps love is like a resting place
A shelter from the storm
It exists to give you comfort, its there to keep you warm
And even if you lose yourself and don’t know what to do,
The memory of
Love
Will see you through.

Love to some is like a cloud, to some, as strong as steel
To some a way of living, to some, a way to feel
And some say love is holding on, some say, letting go;
Some say love is everything, some say, they don’t know….
(John Denver)

Guess I am part of the some that say I don’t know. After seventeen, life swirled in slightly different colors than before. There is really nothing to compare to the adventure of finding and giving love to another. Following that crooked sidewalk, we kept on falling over each other.

By twenty seven, love looked quite different to me. I watched carefully for cracks. No more falling please, due to several bruises to my ego over the years. I didn’t give strong consideration to romance, love now had a different hold on me, but is just as much a mystery as the love I felt before: my children.

Tonight as my children were in their carseats driving home, they wanted a bedtime song. I often sing the them. I can’t think of anyone in the world I love more than my three children, no one on earth I would more readily or willingly sacrifice for-my honor, my reputation, my pat answers or my very life. It would not be too much to give. And so I sang to my little ones:

Perhaps love is like a window
Perhaps and open door
It invites you to come closer, it wants to show you more,
And in those times of trouble, when you are most alone
The memory of love will bring you home.

Love to some is like a cloud, to some as strong as steel,
To some a way of living, to some, a way to feel;
Some say love is holding on, some say, letting go,
Some say love is everything, some say, I don’t know….

We christian’s profess to have found perfect love-the only perfect love, in Christ, the only perfect one. Thank goodness. At least someone (certainly not me) knows what this spin is all about and understands it. I still wonder-perfect love from Christ to me-doesn’t really help me much in the imperfect world of love between me and other-human-being-insert-any-name-here. At least the Perfect Lover of mankind gives us a stellar example to look up to and in any given situation try to live up to. And yet I still mess it up.

See my children’s angelic faces? They are the product of imperfect love. I find absolutely no fault in them (aside from their natural born sin nature). Perhaps if I can model love to them the best I know how, the most truthful I know how….. ….perhaps…… ….perhaps they will learn to choose love and maybe they will understand a little more than I this crazy, imperceptible trip we all tend to take and we commonly call “love”!

Perhaps love is like the ocean,
Full of conflict, full of pain
Like fire when it's cold outside
Thunder when it rains--

If I should live forever, and all my dreams come true,
My memories of love will be of you….

Love to some is like a cloud, to some as strong as steel
To some a way of living, to some, a way to feel
Some say love is holding on, some say, letting go;
Some say love is everything, some say, they don’t know…
(John Denver)


This column is dedicated to my children Elizabeth, Joseph Hendrick and Daniel Hendrick.