i love you

March 3, 2014

"I love you I love you I love you!"

After a long and difficult conversation with a good friend last night, said friend ended the night with those very words to me. 

I have never said 'I love you' to someone outside of my family and meant it in a genuine and real way (it's usually out of joking or I simply don't say it because I don't feel that way.). I don't feel very much and so when I do choose to feel, I make sure it means something and that it is worth my time and whatever emotions I place into it. So for me, to hear someone say that to you and know full well in your heart that they absolutely mean it despite everything that they know about you is something quite different and almost indescribable. It meant something because it wasn't said out of gratitude or joy or romantic inclinations, etc. It was said with a rushed spontaneity that had the imitations of a child eager to express and surprise with the latest news that meant the world to them. And it was said as a response given after just detailing everything I could possibly be rejected and turned away for. To hear those words & have it genuinely mean something in that situation was simply amazing and freeing, for lack of better words. 

Is not that what humans yearn for? To be truly known and yet deeply loved. Not with the cheap love that movies and songs like to depict. Not the sort of 'love' that gets blasted all over your facebook, twitter, instagram, *insert other popular social media devices*. Not the sort of love that is dependent on circumstances, mood of the moment, heat of the moment, people's strengths and good sides, their attractiveness, their personality, what they have to offer... not the sort of love that so often, well, dies. 

But the love that we want is the kind that there is no ending or condition to. The kind that stays, lasts, perseveres, endures, and oddly enough, is strengthened through difficulties, through conflict, through weaknesses, through the most dark and disgusting things you could imagine. Why would there be such a love? Because it is a love that sees and realizes that you are not simply what your circumstances and situations have made you to be, you are not simply your mistakes, your flaws, your terribly dark inclinations that scare even you when you become aware of them, but that at the heart of it all you are a human being of so much value, worth, and preciousness because not only were you purposefully made and placed on this earth, but Christ died for you. 

There is a fear within me, and I believe in many people, that if we were to be truly known -- all secrets, past mistakes, cruel inclinations -- if we were to be laid bare before people, we'd be rejected and looked at in disgust, disappointment, and shock. There's probably some truth to it ... there's some truth to most fears. And so we do a couple of things: we keep our distance from people, we put up a facade and we let ourselves be exactly who we need to be to be liked and accepted by those that matter to us, and then we sometimes start shutting off our own feelings. If we can't feel anything, then what others think, say, or feel about us won't hurt us. We may stop feeling, but we never stop wanting and desiring to be so very loved that it gives us the very hope and encouragement we need to even believe in ourselves, that we could possibly change and move forward and be simply transformed and rid of all the darkness that we see inside us. That we could mean something to someone.

It is this very love that we catch glimpses of all around us and that we yearn for. And it is this very kind of love that we are offered freely by God. He already knows us, all we've done, all we are doing, all we will do, and yet all He chooses to say is "I love you". Will we take what is offered us? Or will we continue to look for it in everything and everyone else we can find, sometimes hurting ourselves or others in the process, and sometimes, if we're fortunate, catching glimpses of it and yet continuing to want more and more of it? Will I take it? 

It's love that can change people, and it's lack of love that can crush people.