The Universal Language: Love

Love is universal, powerful and life’s nourishment. It provides us with an energy and a joy that can dispel loneliness, sorrow and despair. Valentine’s Day is a perfect day to reflect on this further.

There are so many faces of love. A parent’s love, new love, love of a friend, a child’s love and self-love just to start. Each different in its own way, but just as special and powerful.

A Child’s Love

Is love instinctive for a baby or child? I think it is. I remember my older daughter placed in my arms for the first time, and inconsolable. Her body wracked with tears. Unending sobbing. Then just as it started, it stopped. She quieted down and as I held her and patted her back, I felt her little tiny hand patting my back.

I couldn’t believe this beautiful child, feeling such heartache, felt our love and reciprocated it. Maybe I was naive or just not around young babies to know they have this amazing instinctive understanding of love.

When my husband and I returned from China we experienced more of these shows of love. As we walked in to wake her each morning, she’d stand in her crib with her arms outstretched, waiting for the first hug of the day. My husband and I would race to be the first one through the door so we could be enveloped in and return the love.

While in the bath, she’d be playing and then just stand up, stretch out her arms and give these wonderful wet hugs. Her love was constant and it was like food for our souls after praying and waiting for years for this blessing. God was showing us his love for us and our child.

Palm of His Hand

We adopted our younger daughter before her third birthday. From the beginning we understood God held her in the palms of his hand. Her capacity to feel and give love to this day seems to transcend the norm.

Our little girl only knew the orphanage. Taking her beyond those walls was jarring and threw her into an emotional state. Her only way to let us know her suffering was to cry, and that she did. This time around, we had experience with a child so we used our tools. We hugged, joked, laughed, cajoled, and coaxed our forlorn child. Nothing helped.

My husband then started playing with plastic cups and behold, our break through. Our daughter’s eyes lit up and she showed us her beauty and soul. A smile that I hold dear to my heart, spread across her face. This smile full of surprise, wonder, joy and love.

Her Heart Hears the Children

While out and about in China, Rayna pointed to children and cried. Not being around too many adults, she bonded with other children. She continues to be perceptive and connected to children’s feelings and is filled with compassion for them.

After being home a few months, she started school. The teachers shared how each day she consoled any crying child. To see another child suffer was too much for her. Her empathy is apparent; she seems to feel what others feel.

Sometimes when speaking with her, she’ll gently place a loose strand of hair behind my ear, always so tender. This last week, as a surprise, she played calm meditation music on my phone. I returned to my office to find this peaceful music playing. I asked her about it and she explained she felt my stress so she wanted me to feel peace.

She is filled with this innocent, protective, gentle love. It’s pure and simple. I believe her early experiences are forever with her and impact her present actions.

Parent’s Vision

As a parent, I now understand my parent’s so much more. God blesses us with small miracles. We care, teach and love our children to the best of our ability. Because of this we hurt when they hurt, feel their disappointments and their joys. We love them with every ounce of our being.

And how we worry. We worry about their health, schooling, and future. We want to shield them from all hardships. Of course that isn’t reality nor is it healthy. They must fly with their wings and find their way even if at times this means overcoming hardships, sorrows and failure.

Owen and Mzee

How many times do you hear or read of amazing animals? Do you know the story of Owen and Mzee? Owen, a baby hippopotamus separated from it’s mother, stranded on a reef, too weak to move is rescued. He is placed in an enclosure with a 130 year old tortoise, Mzee.

Owen immediately goes to Mzee. Mzee doesn’t want to be bothered. Each time Mzee moves, so does Owen. By the following day, Owen and Mzee accept each other.

Owen won’t eat. Mzee eats next to Owen as though teaching him how. This odd friendship/love saves Owen.

Is this instinct? I believe it’s a special kind of love. It heals and is full of power, energy and possibilities.

Souls Connected

Love comes to us at different times. Once you find a person to love, you feel as though you walk with an extra step, the world is a little brighter and things all seem to come together at once.

When you’re apart, you miss your companion and your heart aches. You’re constantly thinking of one another. Such comfort and familiarity, to know and understand someone so well you can finish their sentences.

Life and everything else all align. It feels as though two hearts beat as one.

The years go by and love changes. Trials and tribulations beat against the strong foundation you’ve built together. This is your power over loss, sickness, job changes, family woes. It weathers all storms. You just need to continue to see the good in one another and remember the connection, two hearts beating as one. Do not doubt your partner’s goodness and love. Trust in one another.

Remember all the insecurities, shortfalls and blemishes that were present when you dated – we’re human, we all have them. Instead of picking each other apart you chose to raise each other up to higher levels with love. She saw a gentle hero and that is what he became. He saw a kind, peaceful calming soul and that is what she became.

Maybe weathered but the love that is powerful, miraculous and forgiving endures.

Self-Love

To love another, you must first love yourself. Sometimes we concentrate on loving everyone else, and forget our self. You must remember to yourself. You are one of God’s miracles to be nurtured.

Conclusion

I could not finish this off without including Bible passage. There is so much being said here. Read it, think about it and live it.

1 Corinthians 13 – If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.