What is Love?

I have two songs stuck in my head at this very moment… “What is love? Baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me no more” by Haddaway (yes, 80’s pop radio) and Tina Turner’s “What’s love got to do with it?”. Why? you might wonder. Well…a moment came today – one of those moments that as a parent you hope never comes, but if you’re realistic, you know it will. The moment didn’t come in a loud shouting match, it didn’t come from the call of a teacher or neighbor…it came in the quiet whisper of a child’s writing on a scrap of paper, cast aside in her bedroom, forgotten. In a dash to get the house organized, I was straightening up in my daughter’s room and came upon this little white piece of paper…with words so sharp they cut my heart…

“I hate my mom. She is loveless and careless to me. She won’t even let me have breakfast with the family. She won’t let me have my food.”

Wow. She’s eight years old. “I hate my mom”… “she is loveless and careless”. For a moment I just looked at it. We’ve talked about the fact that we don’t say “I hate you”… but there it was in black and white, and about me. My mind tried to unscramble the mornings over the last week to figure out what this was about. It came to me…we were rushing, she was dawdling, I was barking orders. And I lost my cool. We had apologized and made up that evening. But at some point before leaving the house that morning, she must have scribbled this note out. In a weird way, I'm incredibly glad she did. She had to get it out. She needed to voice her feelings. I’m not angry. I’m stunned. I’m heart-broken that my daughter would, for even just a moment, feel this way. And I’m ashamed…ashamed that I couldn’t have more self-control and be the “adult” in that rushed moment. (And lest you think I starve my children…she ate.) The most profound thing I believe she said was in the phrase “she is loveless and careless”. She uses “careless” in a way of “she doesn’t care about me”…but what she doesn’t know is how correct she is in her choice of words when it is used in the sense of “done or said heedlessly or negligently” (Dictionary.com). She was right. I yelled, impulsively, without thinking about it. By not stopping to breathe and choose my words carefully, I was “careless”. Am I also “loveless”? That is what brings me to ask “what is love?” We’ve all heard 1 Cor 13 – so many times probably, many people don’t even know it’s from the Bible…it’s just an accepted quote about love. But let’s look at it here… (4) “Love is patient, love is kind.” Well if I just stop there…I already have two strikes. (5) “It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered (oops, strike three…I’m out), it keeps no record of wrongs.” I am guilty of expecting my eight year old daughter to rely on the feeling or emotion of love that is always there no matter what. But that’s really not fair. Because in her eyes, love is an action. It is an outward expression – and the only way it’s demonstrated is through my behavior. Am I patient? Do I take time to breathe? Do I remember that they are children, not adults? Practicing patience is an action…not a state of being. It is something to be worked out. Am I kind? Does the tone of my words say more than the words that are actually being spoken? Am I choosing my words carefully, so as not to hurt? In an article by R. Vijai P. Sharma, PhD, “One ‘Zinger’ Can Undo 20 ‘I love You’s”, he says, “Beware, the power of the negative is far greater than the power of the positive. Unkind words echo in our ears for years while the kind words are forgotten in days. A ‘zinger,’ that is, a cruel and aggressive quip or retort, can cut wounds too deep for pacifying words to heal.” Am I rude, self-seeking? For me – this ends up being about my agenda coming first. And woe to anyone who gets in the way of that. Am I easily angered? I am. It comes in the form of control…and as soon as I think I’m losing control, my temper flairs. Love doesn’t mean she gets her way. It doesn't mean that she's always going to like my decisions. It doesn’t mean that there aren’t consequences to dawdling or wasting time. But love is not only some intrinsic feeling. It has to be extrinsic…it has to be actionable… it causes me to be the adult…to make better choices…to exercise reason and consider consequences of my own behavior. Love in action is what becomes believable. What’s love got to do with it? (12) And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” We are not perfect, but we can learn and change... be encouraged to make love actionable in your relationships. Love has got everything to do with it.