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It's been said that our capacity to love others is inextricably linked to our understanding that we are deeply loved by another. In the deepest reaches of our souls, we know that we were created to love and to be loved.
Sadly, our answer to the meaning of love in our lives is too often answered by its absence. We feel the necessity of love too often in our silences and sorrows, in feelings of loss, abandonment, loneliness and fear. Our souls know beyond doubt that we could have loved or been loved better.
The good news is that our longing for love keeps returning as certainly as tomorrow's sunrise. Abandoned and broken, we still find ourselves craving a loving embrace, a warm word, a gentle caress. Our broken hearts may suffer and despair, but eventually we will find some deep longing to make one more try.
What's love got to do with it? Everything, it seems. And it requires as much.
Roget's Thesaurus lists almost 900 synonyms for Alove@, and if we were to practise even a few, we would find our lives profoundly changed. Compassion, devotion, tenderness, romance, companionship--these actions and behaviours are Awhat love's got to do with it@. More than our jobs, interests and accomplishments, we are fulfilled by love. Deprived of it, we suffer more deeply than from any other loss.
Loving and being loved, receiving with an open heart and giving with open hands are what make us deeply human. Through love, we may become more open to wounding, but we are also opened to immeasurable gifts.
Loving makes us more richly human, but it is also what makes us most like the divine. Jesus invited us to love, and said that others would recognize His followers by the love they have for each other (John 13:35). Eugene Peterson summarized the Bible's teaching on love with these words: ATrust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly.
Marlee Andres is a writer from Abbotsford, B.C.
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