We have all witnessed and experienced love in many ways. We have seen it through the enduring love shared between grandparents or parents. We have observed it in the kindness of one stranger toward another. We have felt it through the care of our own parents, relatives and friends toward us. A kind word, a loving gesture, a warm hug, a reassuring and comforting hand hold, a tender kiss, and countless other ways show us the evidence of love.
I wrote the following story a few months back, but would like to share it with you now.
True love is, putting someone before your self. It means loving them unconditionally through thick and thin, through peaceful times and times of adversity. It means loving them so much that you let them grow and be who they are supposed to be. Fully loving means fully investing a part of your self in another person. For me the greatest understanding of love, true love, came through the birth of my two sons. Having children of my own brought me to live outside myself. It completely changed my focus and priorities. For me it was a huge blessing from God, to have these precious boys so fully dependant on me. Their well- being became my primary purpose. True love is selfless in nature. It puts the other person first. Their wants and needs, their comfort and happiness took precedence over my own. True love overlooks difficulties, obstacles, tiredness, tantrums, etc.
Sacrifice is a huge part of true love. Our sons are 2 years 9 months apart, to the very day. When the boys were babies and toddlers they needed me constantly. I spent many sleepless nights tending to my babies (and I enjoy my sleep). One night when our first son was about 10 months old we woke up to a really weird noise coming from his room. I got out of bed and went to check on him. He was up on his hands and knees gasping for air. He sounded like a barking seal. Now this is horrifying for any parent, but especially for first timers. Many parents know about croup, but we were new to the illness. As my husband and I got ready to take our baby boy to the hospital, I remembered hearing somewhere that cold night air was good for breathing problems. So as my husband backed the car out, I stood on the driveway with out little one. We were both so distraught with worry. We drove with the windows down all the way to the hospital. This seemed to open his airways quite a bit and ease the struggle to breathe. We made it to the hospital and they gave our baby a breathing treatment till he was well enough to go home. The croup continued to be a nighttime problem every time our son came down with a cold. Fortunately the doctor said he would outgrow it little by little as he and his airways grew. There were many nights of sitting on the front porch with our son wrapped in a blanket or sitting on the toilet with the shower streaming. This, I found out was the recommended treatment for a croup attack. These were alarming yet tender moments for me. I wouldn’t have traded holding my son on the cold front porch for all the cozy beds in the world.
As our boys were growing my role as mom didn’t change, but the way it looked did change a bit. Little by little I have had to take a step back, letting them have space to grow and become their own individual person. I love them so much that I want to keep them young and dependant on me, but I also love them so much that I know I must let them become independent. Each stage they have gone through has tugged on my heartstrings. I can honestly say I have enjoyed every step of the journey. My heart has joyfully skipped a beat with theirs’ and my heart has broken right along with theirs’. True love has great empathy for the other person. You not only sympathize with them from the outside. You are actually pulled into their circumstance and feel the very things they are feeling.
Each of our sons had a very different first day of preschool experience. Our older son cried for the first couple of weeks when I dropped him off. My heart broke as I saw how upset he was. At first I would sit with him on the floor in his class while he got settled in. Then the time came when the teacher suggested I try leaving him. The teacher reassured me that the crying would stop soon after I left. It was hard for me to leave, but he did survive. He quickly adapted and has been an eager student ever since. Our younger son had a different response to his first day. He walked into the class, gave me a quick hug and said goodbye. He then happily went to join his new classmates on the rug to play dinosaurs. I stayed around outside long enough to watch him come out of class and head to the playground for his first time. As I watched from a distance he hopped on a little scooter and began pushing himself along. I can still picture the outfit he wore and his curly blond hair. A little piece of my heart went to preschool with each of my sons.
Our sons are now 14 and 17. One will begin his freshman year of high school in a few weeks. The other will begin his senior year. We have just returned from a college tour that took us all the way across the country. Where has the time gone? Throughout the years there have been many times to celebrate with my sons as well as times of disappointment to comfort them through. All I know is that my heart definitely feels connected to theirs’. As each year passes we all grow and change, but one thing never changes… I love them immensely.
As each son leaves and goes to college in the next few, I know a piece of my heart will be wherever they are.
All the ways we witness and experience love is directly from God above. He is love and all love flows from Him.
John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
1 John 4:9- 12, This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for[ our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
1 John 4:16, And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
1 John 4:19, We love because he first loved us.
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