What is Love? (Baby, Don't Hurt Me)

     "Have you ever been in love?" someone asked me recently.
     And I didn't know the answer. What does it mean to be "in love"? Does it mean to really, really like someone? Or is something totally different? What is the distinction? I really don't get it.
     Today, I'm going to talk about my concept of love. Many of you might not agree with me. In fact, you probably won't. But, since here I'm simply penning things I think, I'm going to do just that.
     I think love is love. I don't believe in soul mates or one true love. Yes, I believe that God has a plan for our lives, but to me, that just means that whoever I may choose to marry, they were the one I was meant to marry. I don't think there's a perfect person waiting out there for everyone, or anyone. I don't believe in a better half.
     All love is the same in a way, and for love to be love, it must be 100%. Many times, what we call love is not love at all, but simply infatuation or lust. There are different types of the same kind of love, and that it takes a lot more than butterflies to make a relationship work.
     Imagine a child asking their mother, "Do you love me or Daddy more?" Well, ideally, that would be a question with no answer. The mother loves them both, but in different ways. She can't say she loves one more than the other because she truly loves each of them. When you love someone genuinely, there are no degrees. It's a wholehearted, 100% love. That's just one girl's opinion. Yes, as imperfect human beings, we aren't going to be able to keep that 100% up 100% of the time. But as we grow, our moments of actual love become more often and more consistent.

Carl and Ellie - "Up"

     You can feel that for more than one person - in fact, you probably should.You should wholeheartedly love your family, your friends, and to be fair, the random stranger on the street. You should love every single person on the planet because that is the life to which we have been called as people filled with love. As a Christian, it's my goal to love everyone with that wholehearted, 100% love. I don't want a 50-50 relationship. I want 100-100. Both people giving their all. Obviously, I don't do this perfectly, or even well. But it is my goal. Now, there are definitely different kinds love. There's parental love, there's the love of friendship, there's the love you show to strangers, and there's romantic love. I really don't think we should so foreground romantic love above other kinds of love. All this hype perpetuated by the media creates this image of romantic love as the answer to all life's problems. If you've ever experienced romantic love, you know that no romance can fill a hole of loneliness, nor can it complete you in any way.
     I think that romantic love is simply a self-sacrificial attitude towards mankind in a romantic context. Which means that you can love someone 100% as a person, and if you have romantic feelings towards them, that's love.
     So, why are we so scared of saying, "I love you"? If you have a boyfriend, you are usually pretty assured that he has romantic feelings towards you. Why wouldn't you want to also be assured that he has your best interests at heart? I know a lot of Christian couples who are so serious about their purity, and that is really admirable. But I really don't understand the ones who are saving the words "I love you" for their spouses. Love is choosing to put the well being of another before yourself. I wouldn't want to be with someone who didn't love me, would you? Why would you want that?
     I don't believe in "in love." If by "in love," you mean strong romantic attraction, then yes. I've been in love. I'm going to be in love a lot of times. I think that being in love isn't as big of a deal as people say it is, to be honest. Having butterflies is the easy part. If you meet someone, and you decide to engage in a romantic relationship, it's going to be someone you not only feel for romantically, but someone you respect, communicate with well, trust, and want the best for.
     It's totally possible that the reason I don't understand "in love" is that I haven't felt it. Maybe it's the type of thing you know when you feel it. But I don't think so. I think there will be a lot of romantic loves in each person's life. It's exciting and fun, but the truly special one is the one marked by the choice of commitment. That's it. The soul mate is the one you choose. And despite the fact that my view of love might seem cynical and unromantic, I think that my kind of love is a lot more special and real. It means you can't miss the person you were meant to be with, because if there's a person made for you, it's is the person you choose.

Christmas Reflections with Lucado, Charlie Brown, and the Grinch

     For much of this Christmas season, I haven't been myself. Most years, I love the baking, decorating, and wrapping. I start playing Christmas music after Halloween, and I plan presents with delight months in advance. But this year, it has seemed really hollow. Part of what has gotten me to this point is that life is hard. For whatever reason, Christmas can remind us of the things or the people we've lost, or the times we've felt unloved and rejected.  As I watch people put materialism and busy Christmas activities over love, family, and God, I find myself echoing Charlie Brown: "Isn't there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?"
     That's why, this season, there's really nothing more appropriate to talk about than the love of God. That's the most important thing about Christmas. We get swept away by the shopping and the wrapping, and the food, and I think we end up congratulating ourselves if we remember to stick Jesus somewhere at all in our celebration. And all those wrappings seem to be celebrating nothing real, because when we don't remember how loved we are, we really are celebrating a hollow Christmas.
     If we could step back from all this, we might be able to get some perspective, because I think that's what we need when we get bogged down by the humdrum of Christmas.
     Many of us would say that God becoming flesh and coming to earth, living a life, and dying, was a miraculous act of love. But if we step back even further from that, we are reminded that Jesus coming to earth was only a small, but crucial chapter - the climax, of of the story of God's love for us.
     First, God created. He created time, space...everything - just to put us in it. Then, when it was all prepared, God created us. And it's the way He created us that causes the need for God to come to earth. Granting humankind the ability to choose is a decision that I probably would not have the wisdom or guts to make. Lucado says, "What a dangerous liberty. How much safer it would have been to finish the story for each Adam. To script every option. It would have been simpler. It would have been safer. But it would not have been love. Love is only love if it is chosen."
     And God knew what we would do. When he decided to give us the ability to choose, He knew we would abuse that privilege, and He knew the consequences. Weirdly, Lamentations is one of my favorite books in the Bible. Here, God writes a long description of the results of sin, not as a condemnation, but as an outpouring of sorrow. He observes the slavery, disappointment, betrayal, restlessness, sorrow, loneliness, humiliation, crushed beauty, regret, shame, filth, recklessness, defilement, lack of strength, guilt, and hurt we feel as a result of sin. The things that happen don't even have to be a direct result of a wrong action - the fact that Adam sinned simply broke the world. It's fallen, and now, bad things happen. Israel cries out, "My groans are many and my heart is faint" (1:22), and bemoans that they find "no resting place" (1:3). The consequences of sin, well, they stink. A lot. Pain often makes you ask why God would let this happen. For me, I sometimes honestly wonder if the ability to choose is worth all this. Honestly, I think what triggered my Grinchiness was when the five-year-old girl across the street from me, whom I love, told me, "My daddy had to leave because he touched my vagina." How can you respond to such a thing? I've had a lot of hard stuff come my way in life, and stuff like this just makes me feel like love is a lie, or maybe that it's not worth it.
     But God is so wise, and He knew that a real relationship with him is the best thing that can happen to us. And when we feel like sin is overpowering love, that's a lie. God is love, and God is infinite, and love in its truest form, is infinite. To experience true love is to experience God. Anything that is not love is not God's, and that makes it finite. So when you see how big sin is, God's love is comparatively vaster than the ocean is to a pebble. The infinite will engulf the finite. A love like that is beyond description. Tasting it now, and fully experiencing it when we become uninhibited by the burdens of this world - it's wonderful, and because God loves us, He wants us to be able to experience that, like any good father would.
     But that's only half of God's love story. He wanted us to experience love despite its high cost. But He also always intended to shoulder the burden and pay that cost. And "that's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown," as Linus would say.
     Christ coming to earth is the down payment in redemptive history. When Jesus came to earth, He, again with the centrality of choice in mind, paid the ultimate price so that we could start to see restoration. When Jesus came to earth, he bound his infinity in an ugly, poor, finite human body to grow up, suffer, and bear separation from the Father, from perfection, and from heaven. Do you see the pain Christ undertook by choice for us? Max Lucado describes, "'Can anything make me stop loving you?' God asks. 'Watch me speak your language, sleep on your earth, and feel your hurts. Behold the maker of sight and sound as he sneezes, coughs, and blows his nose. You wonder if I understand how you feel? Look into the dancing eyes of the kid in Nazareth: That's God walking to school. Ponder the toddler at Mary's table; that's God spilling his milk. You wonder how long my love will last? Find your answer on a splintered cross, on a craggy hill. That's me you see up there, your maker, your God, nail-stabbed and bleeding. Covered in spit and sin-soaked...That's how much I love you."
     And God's not done. Clearly, sin and its effects are not wiped from the earth yet - rather, we can choose to allow God to start that work in our lives. As He removes sin from our lives and removes the consequence of our sin which is our condemnation, God allows us to become a part of His work of redemption. Part of Christmas is the hope it brings. God promises to extend the restoration Christians see today to the whole earth. Christmas celebrates the first coming, and we look forward to the final redemption at the end of this story of love and at the beginning of eternity. This time, He will erase all sin and all the pain that is the consequence of sin, for those who choose to be a part of this redemption. Revelation 21:4 says, "He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."

     Perhaps, my fellow Grinches might have the revelation that Christmas could have "came without ribbons!... came without tags!... came without packages, boxes, or bags!" But when we start to feel disillusioned and discouraged, we must remember that pain is not a reason to hate Christmas. Pain is the reason to love Christmas - it is the reason for Christmas. Remember God's love, and perhaps you can find joy in spreading that love this Christmas with the presents and wrappings in their proper places.