Have You Ever Been in Love?

The question insinuates itself occasionally. 

As a boy two answers saw me through.  First, I hoped I was in love with Christ, with serving Him, the joy of seeing people’s lives bettered.  Second, and I only thought to answer this to a girl/woman, “No, but with the right person with the right qualities (think “babe for Jesus”); we might share an abiding love.” 

How many people was I privileged to see married all their lives to construct an idea of “abiding” love?  I missed costs or continual sacrifices they paid to still be married when I came along. 

Then came Jill.  She never asked, but we discussed it.  I was engaged once already.  She was twice.  She had a font of questions, so I took the position of the “sure” one.  Walking in falling snow in Minneapolis’ Minnehaha Park she finally erupted, “I thought I was in love twice before.  How do I know you’re not just the third time?”  With boy-faith I stopped to say, “I’m not the third.  I’m the one.”

We weather tests and trials.  On passing one, a new one emerges like this: studies show more older couples are splitting.  I thought we arrived where everyone stays together.  Not so.

So, have I ever been in love?  I have three working hopes.  I need three, when one might have sufficed for that boy talking to a girl. 

One, Yes.  Probably.  Maybe.  I am selfish, prideful, an ass thinking I am spiritual.  Those tarnish, they downgrade any answer.  So I learn in marriage seminars, and talking to others, and failing and asking forgiveness.  God must make up the difference between my answers and living.  I now know my falling short is more frequent like a sunrise.  I invent small ways to fall short.

Two, and this is important.  I was “in love” from my first breath.  I had mom and dad, who assisted in my delivery as a newly minted MD.  But my mom’s mom stood outside Labor and Delivery doors enrolling me in Sunday school at the age of a squawk.  Much later I saw that my bearing Mammaw’s beloved’s name, Thomas L., was their only hope to pass on either name.  Childless, they adopted mom.  They named no boys.  I was “in their love” early.  Dad’s parents weathered a public affair.  Many others held me “in love.”  I was rich.  Undeserving.  Unaware.

Three.  All of that calls forth from me much for others, and much in His Name.  See above for failings, shortcomings, and selfish manipulations of that sacred truth. 

So yes.  Mostly.  Undeservedly.  I have been in love.

Now, the face I see as I answer the question is not some babe, but One with holes in His hands.