There are joy-filled touches in human relationships. Hurts and joys felt so deeply, they threaten to undo us.
In a theater with family the other evening. My arm is around my wife, and my hand rests on the skin of her upper arm. The tenderness in that moment plowed through my soul with such force, I lost track of the movie, and time. I only wanted to feel and hold onto her and that fleeting instant.
Cradling my grand-daughter in my arms, then laying her in my lap and looking in her eyes. She begins to coo and speak with me. I speak and am quiet. She "speaks," then waits. Eventually, she wiggles her entire body trying to "say" what is in her. She smiles and I melt.
Sometimes when my children hurt or are sick, I'll hold them and tell them I'm leaking love into them. Or I'll say I'm soaking healing into them through my embrace. And I believe it.
What does love look like? I'm not always sure. But I know what it feels like. It stops time, it suspends my needs, it invokes deep passion for the better of the other.
I think of Jesus calling his Father, "Abba." The word is like our "Daddy," or "Papa." We are told the relationships within the Trinity are perfectly loving. I want to understand that. I want to believe that when I make my noises and wiggle with my fears and strive in my praying that somewhere, somehow God hears me and gets it. And then, I want to believe God begins to embrace and leak love into me...
Take peace in such hope.
2 comments:
reminds me a lot of The Shack that i have finished today... the ultimate Love...
if there really are 5 love languages (dunno if you've heard about that book), mine's definitely touch. there's nothing better for me than a reassuring hug when i feel upset, just to lean on someone who you know and who cares for you, and remain like that till the anxiety passes...
one thing i want to do when i get Home (after initial shock and trying to believe that it's actually come true) would be to come and give a hug to God. i am not sure that it will be possible in human terms, but to feel wrapped in His Presence... ahh... if tiny glimpses of that loving Presence can almost lift me off the ground in this life, how much better it would be when the Presence will be revealed in full?
wow...
God is Love...
I believe it, too.
Post a Comment