The Language of Love

There’s a foreign language I’ve been yearning to learn.  I thought I would have to go back to school, yet again, and sit and listen to some aloof and quite learned professor in a classroom painted supposedly mellow yellow.  He would dispassionately teach ah, yet, one more class of bored disinterested students.  And, me, I would doggedly pay attention trying to understand and interpret what in the world he was saying and work hard at making sense of what clearly was gibberish of one kind or another.  But, somehow I knew that this course I hoped for was non-existent, that even money could not buy what I longed to experience.  What I wanted would fill up my senses and even the deepest parts of my being, the parts that are so deep, they are like endless black pits of emptiness filled with sad and lonely despair.  The language I wanted to learn is called the language of love.

Jesus talks about this kind of love.  It’s the kind of love that the destitute woman, a widow, gave when she put in her two small copper coins.  It’s love that says, “I want you to have everything I have because I love you so much, I give it all to you.”  Once I felt that way.  I was so young and innocent.  (I hadn’t yet learned that it is culturally only out of abundance that we are supposed to give.)  But, oh, when the heart is so pulled, so drawn, so overflowing with joy, with compassion, with devotion that it cannot help but give, is not that true love?

Jesus talks about that kind of love when he says to his Dad, “not my will, but yours be done.”  He tried to show us how much he loves us then; He gave his all in every way that he possibly could on the cross that day, in humiliation, in degradation, in despair.  He did it because He loves us and He wanted to show us.  He knew what it would cost, just like the widow did, but He didn’t care, he just said, “I love you, Dad, that much and I love them that much, so it doesn’t matter, I’ll do it anyway.”  Love won that day 2000 years ago!

And today, Jesus still shows us his love; He constantly tries to prove to us that He’s here; He’s present, and He’s talking to us about it every day, possibly every moment.  But, we miss it.  We’re too busy worrying about children, retirement funds, our constant working…and our playing.  We don’t get it that God is very much interacting with us in our goings and our comings.  He’s as close as we can open our eyes to see.

Perhaps the classroom is not within the walls of that dismal school or hidden the scholar’s words.  Maybe I can learn this language of love by looking and listening as I move about my own little world.  Maybe my teacher isn’t arrogant, aloof or disinterested at all.  I think, instead, He is very interested, generous, kind and benevolent just thinking of ways to surprise and overwhelm and teach me the things I long to know.

When I listen and look for Him, I’m startled at his nearness.  He’s everywhere saying, “Here, I made this for you,” or “I’m here, watch this,” or “Look, come over here.”   Even as I write, I glance at the tulips sitting before me.  They are so delightfully delicate, a gift given by a dear friend, who was also a gift from God when I needed one.  The flowers make me smile as their little pink and white faces reach toward the light, expressions of joy and laughter, reminding me that spring is coming, on this dreary, rainy day!

Thank you, God, for your gifts of love.  I am inspired by my new friend, Ann, who is in pursuit of a list of 1000 of these gifts.  Today I’m looking for them, to know and experience and see the reality of LOVE and it’s perfect language of peace, joy and happiness.  Journal beside me, ready to note and solidify that I did see and I did experience this interaction between God and man.  It’s those moments that God teaches me is his language of love; it’s a language, though foreign, I’m beginning to hear and see and understand.  Maybe one day I’ll even speak it, but for now I am content…to see, to hear, to listen, to know Immanuel, God is with us. Peace.