Love

I have been thinking allot about love, the emotion, the feeling, what it is and how it works.

We all know love. We know how it feels when we are in love and when we are not in love. We have the love of for spouse and the love of for kids. The bible even tells us to love our neighbor, this is how we love our friends. Each of these has its own feeling, its own way to let us know it is there. We also know when it is not. We know when we have stepped outside of love and treated someone poorly.

I think about the love I have for my friends. This love allows me to get up and write everyday. It tells me that I can still interact with them, guide them, be a friend even with the distance. I look forward to exercising this love, this love is the bonding love. The love that makes us trust and rely on each other as neighbors, as community.

I think about love allot now as the ones I love so much are not near me. This love produces two emotions at once, love and longing. It hurts, at the same time however it is alive with thought and memories and smells and texture. This longing makes me love more and want more, it is marvelous in a way and torture in another. this love is what causes us to fight and protect when we are afraid, and hug and cry when we are sad. It even allows us to say the hard things when normally we would be quiet.

Then there is the Love that I know my father in Heaven has for me, for all of us. It is the love that has all other loves mixed in, all at once. His love is what allows us to love. He has given us this emotion so that we know the difference between right and wrong, about caring and not. He has given us this love, so that we can understand why it was so magnificent that He sacrificed His son for us, and what that means.

My love for my wife Catherine is more alive then it has ever been before. My love for my children is more alive then it has ever been before. It is a shame that distance has caused this intensity.

Learn to love, with all of your senses. Look across the room and marvel at what God has given you. Peak into your children's room and smile at the blessings you have been given. Speak to your neighbor as a friend who you may rely upon in times of need. Love as if it could be gone tomorrow. Love.