It's been a while since I wrote anything.  Not that nothing has happened, I just haven't felt like taking the time.  But a friend challenged me to respond to a couple of questions:  How do you know when you love someone?  What is love to me?  Just as Jesus said, the first shall be last -

What is love to me?  If I had to come up with only one answer, I'd say that love is committment.  When you love someone, you are committed to that person.  The dictionary defines commit as "to bind".  That's what I mean.  If you truly love someone, you are bound to that person all your life.  You care about that person, you want what is best for that person above all else, you are willing to work with and for that person to build something that is more than the two of you.  If you love someone, you still love them even when you don't like them.  You know that feelings are great but they come and go. 

Loving someone also means that you recognize who and what that person is.  You accept who someone is when you truly love them with out trying to change the inner person.  That doesn't mean you don't help someone you love to grow, it means that you don't try to CHANGE them.  You help them become the best possible person they can be.  It's like growing flowers - you can't turn a marigold into a rose and you shouldn't try. 

I think that I can say these things because I have lived them.  Most who read this know that I am divorced.  I don't want to remarry my ex-husband but in many ways I still love him.  I am still bound to him by ties we created throughout our years together.  I still pray for the best for him.  I still want him to grow into the best person he can be.  I'll say it again lest some of you misunderstand:  there is no way that I want to remarry my ex-husband yet I can still have love for him.  That's because the love I had for him throughout our marriage was true love, not what the world calls love. 

My definition of love also includes choice.  You can choose to love or not to love.  Most marriages break up because choosing to love becomes too much work.  Choosing committment rather than excitement is very hard sometimes. 

The first question (how do you know when you love someone) is much harder because if you follow my definition, you really don't know that you love someone when you first start dating.  You know that you like that person and that your emotions are all riled up and your hormones are raring to go.  Research shows that the first three years of any relationship are built on emotions/hormones.  To know if you love someone, you have to get to get past all that.   You have to know the person, to find out how compatible you are, to see if you like who that person is right now and where that person is headed.  All of the typical things that go on in a dating relationship.  If all of those things are good, then you might decide that you love that person or that you want to try to love that person.  I think that might be a better way to put it.  You see if you both want to try to love each other.  But the kind of love that most people mean when they ask that question - it's just emotions.  That's why you need to surround yourself with the right kind of people so that when you "fall in love" your likely to be falling with someone who has the same goals and beliefs that you do.  Otherwise, you let yourself in for a lot of heartbreak - sometimes sooner, sometimes later. 

Enough heavy stuff.  God bless you all.

Ok.  Edgar (our music pastor) went on and on after our recording session about God giving many of us songs to praise him.  It spurred me on because about 18 months ago, He gave me the beginning of a song.  I've finally finished it and am putting it out for comments.  Now, the only problem with doing this is that you can't hear the tune - think minor key.  For that, you'll just have to wait to see me.  Then I'll sing it to you!  I'm not real sure about the last verse; to be more specific about the first two stanzas of the last verse.  And I'm not really sure if it's totally finished.  But here it is.

Jill is a dancer and Ian is gay.

They live in a city not to far away

From a church where the chosen sing and pray

They're looking for heaven, where God's love is real

Hungry for Jesus, the search through the streets

In the arms of a lover or a stranger they meet

But the sweel love of Jesus is the touch that they need

They're looking for heaven, where God's love is real

Why are they searching still

Where can they turn

Why don't we share the love

That our Savior has shown?

We'll open all the doors, we'll tear down the bars.

W'll take Christ into the world, we'll go where they are.

No more a citadel where the chosen ones stay

They'll find here a heaven where God's love is real.

There are days when I just don't know.  That's literally, I just don't know.  This weekend was full of them.  I keep praying to God because He is the only one who does know. 

On a less serious note, it has been raining like heck here so I just funneled the downspouts through the garage.  Lo and behold, Butt Dog was wiggling his tiny (but extremely brown) butt and VERY glad to see me!

Tuesday, October 3, 2006

Everybody keeps bugging me to update.  Don't you all know what toads to to things that bug them?  They EAT them!!

Seriously, I have just been so busy with quizzing, parents, two jobs, kids, that I hardly have time to sleep let alone update.  Thanksgiving was fun at my brother's and I agree with Colin that the Jones Soda Holiday Collection is truly an experience!  Kelly cooked the best turkey I have EVER had and I need to get her recipe.  It was wonderful fun to be with Josh and Em and to watch all the cousins learning more about each other.  I was a bit jealous that I didn't get to ride in the Party Car on the way home but I understand that some things are really not fit for a mother's ears and kids deserve their own space. 

Christmas will be tough because it will be the first time in 52 years that I have not had Christmas Eve at my parents' house.  Since Meghan and Nick can't come down from Alaska and my parents are having health problems, we decided to move the celebration to my sister's house.  We will continue the traditions (roast beast, picture, etc.); just move them elsewhere.  We always knew that this day would come. 

Still, I am looking forward to celebrating Jesus's birth with all my family - church and biological. 

So, now that I've updated you can all feel safe that you will not be eaten!