Why Love is Powerful

We've been talking about love a lot lately.

Love between a man and a woman.
Love that makes marriage.
Love between mom and daughter.
Love between doll and girl.
Love that sent Jesus, and love that killed Jesus, and love that raised Him.

All kinds of love.

Yesterday we waited in the lobby for friends to pick us up. She hopped on the marble steps, and her voice echoed in the cavernous, empty room.

"I love my mom," she sang. "I love my mom and my mom loves me."

She continued, "I don't know why my mom loves me. Maybe because I'm sweet. Maybe because I'm nice. Maybe because I make her laugh. My mom loves me, but I don't know why."

I watched her sing and hop, and tiptoe around marble swirls. I listened to her song, and wanted to explain to her that I love her for a million reasons.

But really, I love her for no reason at all. 

I always think it's funny to hear couples say to one another, "Tell me why you love me." As if the purest and sweetest love could be made greater by knowing the source or impetus. We want to make love bigger and stronger by things we do or the way we look.

But, isn't the best kind of love given because you have done nothing to earn it or deserve it? Love that takes you in and calls you its own, simply because it knows no other way to respond around you.

I love my daughter because she is my daughter. And when she isn't sweet, or funny, or when her hair is bedraggled and knotted, I still love her. No less. I can give her a million reasons why I love her. And sometimes, I have no reason at all. I simply just do.

And yet, how quickly I find myself bowing a quivering chin and asking Heaven if His love will still be towards and for me. If it's strong enough to hold me. I am a child, spinning in a cavernous room, trying to figure out why God might love me.

When he might have a million reasons to love me, but really, He needs no reason at all. I find more comfort in a love that saves me and pursues because I didn't do anything, more than a love that finds me worthy. I wake every morning loving my daughter because she's my daughter. If I flip the script, and realize that every morning, I'm loved because I'm a daughter, my heart responds and is filled because of it.

The best love is the kind that is given without merit, and with this truth sinking in, my heart groans like an old ship tossed about on a wild sea, at the mercy of something that will beautifully, powerfully, one day, swallow me whole.

True love is life-giving and almost begs to know the lover more than the love. If the love is unconditional, then please, let me know the Giver.