Label it love.

Posted on by

Most women love to be romanced, and most men are completely confused about what that looks like. One reason for the disconnect is that romantic behavior usually doesn’t mean much to a man. He thinks it’s silly, even stupid. (Of course, a wise man doesn’t  mention that.)

I well remember the time I concocted an elaborate plan to gift Nate with a romantic evening. I arranged for our then-three children to sleep at their cousins’ house overnight and worked hard cleaning, cooking, and filling the house with flowers, candles, and music.

I bought new bed sheets and sprinkled them with spices. (That idea came from the Bible.) Nate reacted positively and thanked me profusely, but his responses probably would have been just as enthusiastic without all the romantic touches.

Male-female relationships have been a challenge since Eden. When Adam and Eve were booted out after tasting the forbidden fruit, no doubt Adam blamed Eve for taking the bait, and Eve blamed Adam for not stopping her. Couples have been squabbling ever since.

In the beginning, Eden’s Garden was a perfect place, and its citizens were sinless. We’re not sure if that lasted 10 eons, 10 years, or 10 minutes, but originally the first couple lived in perfect harmony. What fun that must have been, to enjoy marriage without a single difference of opinion. Each received from the other exactly what he/she needed, and the battle of the sexes didn’t exist.

God hadn’t yet needed to define agape (undeserved) love, since both Eve and Adam deserved the perfect love they received from each other. These days, however, undeserved love is rarely given, and the love we do give has labels: sacrificial love, brotherly love, enduring love, childlike love, patient love, sexual love, romantic love.

And selfish love.

All of us have occasionally loved selfishly, which simply means that on the other side of it, there was something in it for us. In a way, that’s what my gift to Nate was. Since he’d never arranged an elaborate romantic evening like that for me, I put something together based on my own desires and labeled it a gift for him.

Someday, though, when we’re all living in a New Eden, labeled love will be obsolete. Each of us will know how to love like Adam and Eve did (before that fateful bite of fruit), loving perfectly and without limits. We won’t even have to work at it.

Meanwhile, we do have to work at it and should be intentional about loving each other. Even then, probably the best we can do is label-love. One thing we can rejoice about now, though, is that God’s love for us is an Eden-kind of love already, since it’s absolutely perfect in every way. After all…

“God is love.” (1 John 4:8)

Ok, c’mon.

Posted on by

The stairway in my cottage was last refurbished 40 years ago. (Think indoor-outdoor floral carpeting of kiwi green and sunshine yellow.) By leaving it in place we’ve seriously dated our decorating taste, but we kinda like it.

At the top of the stairs is a wooden swing-gate that’s “always been there.” If  opened, its tight metal spring quickly snaps it closed, assuring that both young and old won’t fall down the stairs. We all like that idea, except for one:

Jack.

When I go upstairs to write, I usually close the door at the bottom of the stairs so Jack doesn’t follow me. If he has dirty paws or plans to beg for treats or pester for a walk, it’s preferable that he not be upstairs. But once in a while, he noses the door open anyway and makes his way up. At the top, though, he’s stopped by the gate.

Jack is a big dog and could easily push it aside but usually just waits with pleading eyes, hoping someone will come along to open up for him. We wondered why he didn’t nudge his way through, since he often does that with other doors.

One day we decided to spy. When no one came to help, eventually he did get the gate open but not like we thought. Because the spring quick-snaps it closed, he had to shove hard with his nose, then endure a whack in the face on its rapid return, before sharply shoving it a second time to squeak through. Ouch.

On the days when I invite him to come upstairs, it’s a different story. No waiting. No pleading. No nose-shoving. No face whacks. When I  say, “Ok, Jack, c’mon,” he can bound up the steps, and at the top the gate is swung wide for him.

Jack’s “wait-or-whack” relationship with the gate reminds me of the Lord’s relationship with me. I often question which way I should go, much like Jack wonders if he can come upstairs. When I don’t get God’s go-ahead (which is probably his “not now”), I move forward anyway.

I proceed “up the steps” or in whatever direction I want to go, only to find I’m blocked when I get there. I can quickly interpret those spoiled plans as God being unfair or leading me astray, but of course he didn’t lead me there at all.

At other times I might pray for God’s guidance, then find doors of opportunity suddenly closing. When that happens, he’s probably telling me “no”, but just like Jack, if I want it bad enough, I’ll force the doors open, and whack. Ouch.

It’s taking time, but slowly I’m learning that the best way to “get upstairs” or to reach a goal I’m shooting for is to wait until the One in charge looks at me and says, “Ok, Margaret, c’mon.”

“I am the Lord, who opened a way…” (Isaiah 43:16)

Hand in Hand

Posted on by

Nate was big on shaking hands. As many men do, he’d shake hands hello and goodbye, and shake the hand of someone introduced to him for the first time, both men and women. He’d also shake the hands of our children’s friends as they arrived to our home, whether youngsters or teens. He especially liked shaking the hands of his own four sons.

If he saw them first thing in the morning, his greeting was always accompanied by a hand shake. Meeting them at a restaurant? A hand shake. Bumping into them at church? A hand shake. In his view, at no time was it ever inappropriate to shake a hand.

Touching another person with a warm gesture — a pat on the back, a hug, a tap on the arm, a hand shake – though brief is enough to reveal what one person thinks of another. It also makes it easier to move forward into whatever comes next, even if it’s a difficult conversation.

Jesus was a good model of positive touching, never missing a chance to touch someone in need, to heal, encourage, or just be kind. I don’t know if shaking hands was in vogue in Jesus’ day, but being a hands-on person probably meant then what it means today: “I’m interested in you.”

One of the most famous paintings of all time was done on the ceiling of Rome’s Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo’s multi-paneled masterpiece crescendos in the highly-charged image of God reaching toward man in a painting entitled “The Creation of Adam.” The hand-to-hand gesture between them was probably as close to a handshake as people got in the year 1512.

Scripture is another place where potent but helpful hand-touching can be found. For example, the disciple John was given a vision of heaven and told to write down what he saw so the rest of us would have some idea of what it will be like. Jesus had left earth for heaven decades before, so when John saw Jesus in the vision, he was overcome with emotion and went face-to-the-floor.

Jesus bent down and put his right hand on John, a hand-touch that communicated love and acceptance. He urged him not to be afraid but to get up and be ready to write down what he would see. That hand on John gave him the confidence to respond as Jesus asked.

The Lord is all for appropriate touching, and some say we can actually “be his hands” here on earth. Then he takes our human touch and injects his supernatural power into it, causing people to move forward through the tough stuff of life.

I wonder how Jesus will greet us when we arrive in heaven. Handshakes all around? Group hugs? Back pats? Whatever it is, I know we’ll welcome it, “hands-down.”

“When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: ‘Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last.’ ” (Revelation 1:17)