Perfect Love

Today is Valentine's Day. The day we celebrate love. 

Modern culture often treats love as something cheap and easy...and any one of us has been guilty of doing the same...but it is nothing of the sort. Even on this holiday of love...chocolate, flowers, and romantic cards mean nothing, one day of the year, if the work, and choice, and gift of love is not given everyday. 

On my fun search for "love" quotes today I saw this one and it resonated with my love story: 

"Perfect love sometimes does not come till the first grandchild."  

Welsh Proverb

Even as I ponder it again, I nod and smile. That simplified statement captures a lot for me.

What about you? Is your love perfect? Mine wasn't either. Still has a long way to go. In all things, maturity takes time.

And you may be thinking..."Yeah, my marriage is way less than perfect." 

While I am referring to marriage, what I actually mean here is "my ability to love" was not perfect. Not my spouse's. Mine. Because love, and healing, and forgiveness must start in my heart. 

Learning how to love means turning to the Savior, Jesus. The author of all that is good. He tears down and builds up in us so that we can learn to build up and not tear down those around us. 

Learning to love means learning to receive grace and to give grace...and grace changes everything.

Will you wait and hope? Will you persevere, pray, surrender, and trust?

We often read these words and we've heard them so many times that they are just "blah, blah, blah." But they are good words, hard words, true words:

Love is patient, love is kind. 

It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 

It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, 

it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 

It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails.

1 Corinthians 13:4-8

Perhaps we get stuck on the first phrase and just give up. "Love is patient..." Ugh! But with God all things are possible. His love never fails. It will accomplish in us what is good and perfect...if we will only believe, trust, and rely on Him.

Lean into His perfect love and let Him do what He does best: perfect. 

He makes all things beautiful in their time.

We've had a long road, my man and me. Thirty years and counting. Up hills, through valleys, and many a desolate place. But we've also known still waters, peaceful meadows, and joyful reconciliations. Laughter, silliness, and tender moments. 

And, yes, the wonder of that first grandchild...

...then the second and the third. 

And as each one of those precious babies were born...or even well before that, at each wedding, watching our children enter into the same covenant that we made so many years ago...we've gazed at one another and lifted our hearts to heaven in thankfulness that we did not give up. 

Love never fails. 

*   *   *   *   *   *   *

What about you?

It breaks my heart that so many marriages around us have been dropping like flies. And while it looks like they're just suddenly "dropping," the reality is more a slow slide, a heaping of troubles, walls going up...one brick at a time.

I've been a messy puddle on one side of a high, thick wall with my husband...so close and yet so far...on the other side. I understand the desperation, bitterness, loneliness, and hopelessness that takes couples to the point of giving up. I've been there.

But I also know that given enough stubbornness against the "D" word and a desperate willingness to dare...yes, dare...to let God be as big as He says He is...beginning with your own bitter heart, ingrained bad habits, lack of belief...He can restore, instruct, and give deeper faith. 

And as you begin to breathe His life more fully you will find that you are breathing that same life back out...grace...into your marriage and your family, all the while forging a deep intimacy with the Lord that will be your solace come what may. 

You may even find, as I did, that knowing Him that way was the real quest all along, even above a healed marriage. Laying down the idolatry of demanding a perfect earthly relationship because, truly, He is all you need.   

For a deeper look at "not giving up" read For Better Or For Worse.

Know His grace. There is hope.

A Woman-in-the-Making

She stands with cute, cropped hair, eyes sparkling, delicate ear-bangles dangling, face framed by deep magenta scarf...and while I'm shooing her out of here to run her errand, I know I'd rather just sit and stare at her...you know, like I used to when she was a little girl. 

Have you ever been mesmerized by your child's face? Those tiny features, lively eyes, precious smiles... As her features matured I thought I'd get over it, but apparently I haven't. Because, really, she's as much a miracle at 23 as she was when I first laid eyes on her. 

And here she is all grown up and poised, with just enough sophistication in her funky self to let you know she's a woman, not a girl, and just enough youthful excitement to make you wish...well, make me wish...that she didn't need to run off today.

As usual our conversation bordered on ADD...fun earrings, what the kids will need when they wake up, wide-eyed smiles and mutual gushes over colors we adore...like the deep rose-magenta of her scarf that we'd both secretly love to paint on a wall in our homes. We've always been able to skip happily through those mind mazes. Hand in hand, never lost in the transitions, and happy as clams to meander off the linear path. 

Our personalities are very similar, our struggles have been too. Last night, as had been our habit in days gone by, we talked long into the night of the deep and the difficult, of relationships, of who we were and who we are becoming. We walked the path of Jesus' hand in all of it, sharing common insights and more than a few "aha" moments.  

So as I gaze today, taking in far more than her animated words, the thought comes, "She is gorgeous...from the inside out. My daughter is beautiful!" 

She makes it halfway across the room before turning with something new to share. I chuckle, saying, "Go! You know we'll just keep talking forever." And so she finally drives off, but she's left a bit of radiance behind...and I think of her. 

I love hearing her heart, her struggles, her victories. I love sharing the ordinary and the fun things, shared passions and silliness. It is a privilege to journey as women together. 

Even when she was a girl that is how I saw her...a woman-in-the-making. Always in process. 

I never tire of watching God fashion His masterpieces.  

Women-in-the-making are beautiful.