Love.

So, I've been thinking a lot about LOVE.
Mostly I like it.
I like the things LOVE makes me do.
Like walking down the aisle toward a man I'm pretty sure I love, but 24 years later am certain has LOVEd me well. Or when I see someone or something I might have overlooked if LOVE hadn't grabbed me and turned me around.

I like the way LOVE makes me feel. Even when LOVE catches me off guard and makes my heart feel like its been turned inside out and squeezed in the middle.

I like the way LOVE makes me look, and really see...my neighbors, my family, my friends, & even strangers, with more clarity, more grace, more....LOVE.

But here's what I'm learning, in all my thinking about LOVE: I've got a long way to go. I've got MILES to walk until I really learn how to LOVE unselfishly, without regard for me and mine. I've got YEARS to live until my default is you and whatever it is that might be weighing you down.

But that's where Grace comes in. Just when I think I can't/won't take another step toward LOVE or I will never capture the moments that are right in front of me...

LOVE reaches out His hand and tells me to just breathe.
It is the magnitude of this LOVE, the vastness of it that can swallow me whole and yet hold me close -- for which I will always be grateful.

There's this old hymn by Frederick Lehman called The Love of God.
I haven't heard it sung in forever...

The love of God is greater far Than tongue or pen can ever tell... Could we with ink the ocean fill, And were the skies of parchment made, Were every stalk on earth a quill, And every man a scribe by trade; To write the love of God above Would drain the ocean dry; Nor could the scroll contain the whole, Though stretched from sky to sky.

Gotta go find my pen, for LOVE's sake.