First Love

First love…

As a child I cannot remember my parents or siblings or friends or myself using the word ‘love’—and as I reminisce I realize love was something that was experienced through action rather than heard through words.  

Remembering those days I am unable to differentiate my feelings of love for an individual.  Love was a family thing—it was who we were and how we lived and worked together and yes sometimes fought and became angry with each other.  To love was to know each one had a place in the family, each had a responsibility to ‘set the table before the meal’ or ‘wash the dishes after the meal’, to use the sweeper under and around the table.  Each had a task which meant we were part of the family.  It was our world, we rarely used the word ‘love’ but somehow we knew it was not a word but something exemplified in how we lived together.  We just knew we were loved and cared for, and we loved and cared in return by our respect and obedience. 

 Words like ‘love’ were saved for special moments in grown up lives, a word that if  defined would mean, hard work, joining together in the tasks of everyday living with a special person, a person chosen to duplicate this same world of love.  At times this love meant doing the things we would rather not do but understood somewhere deep within that if we didn’t do our part then someone would go without, including ourselves—and of course there would be consequences for leaving the thing undone.     

 Love was the reason why dad worked hard and would work at any job in order to put food on the table for six children.  Love recognized that there was a place around the table for each of us.  Love for me began with the security that home gave when bombs were falling and we were all in it together—taking care that when we huddled together in the darkness of the air-raid shelter no one was missing.  

Love was also evidenced through the friendships I made, not many but enough and when the appointed time came with a yearning in my heart for something more—I heard of God’s love and through my own great need, love was sown into my heart.  Through love friendship with Jesus and deep passion for the Church laid a foundation in my soul.  

It was out of this backdrop that love came to me as a very young woman and  made way for commitment to one man—a passion that focused on one relationship that would pay the cost of leaving home, family, country and all I knew of life.   Love so deep that through 56 years it has stood the test of time, many trials, many struggles and steep learning curves that proved love endures and transforms the soul.     To love another is to know them and in knowing them love discovers the awesome value of a single soul.  

As I write these words I realize that I have sometimes consciously but mostly unconsciously lived life establishing the same womb of protection for our immediate family.  I have learned that the world we live in has changed drastically.  I have grown to realize that people, especially our own offspring need to hear the words ‘I love you’. 

I have learned that love is the foundation and motivation for my actions, it is why I do what I do—love is not just words or feelings but passion that acts on behalf of others.  Love is an attitude that says…I have a destiny, I am a part of the whole…I have a task to do…for the Glory of God and the good of all mankind.

“What manner of love is this that we should be called the children of God”

[1 John 3:1]