What is Love?

1 Corinthians 13:13 - And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

My heart hurts. Like tearing out of my chest, bearing my soul, literal pain ripping through me hurts. Death is too much. One death of someone I love is too much. But just as I'm reeling from the loss and the changes of that whole dynamic, another loss announced today at work. My heart is searing as it is ripped in half.

Why do we have to go through this? Why do we get close enough to people that losing them hurts this badly. Why don't tears ever just run out? Why do we love?

It would be so much easier if we just navigated life without forming relationships. Endings are too painful so we should just walk through life and get our jobs done. Don't make attachments. Don't make connections. Don't make eye contact. Don't love. Love happens. And then something interrupts that whether it's change or flux or death. And then hearts break and grief happens and who wants all that?

If I had never met Clay, and my girls and I didn't fall in love with him we wouldn't be here. I wouldn't be sneaking out to my car trying to steal away quick moments of sobbing and then pulling myself together to get back to life. I wouldn't be holding Amelia while she sobbed about going to band and playing her drums. I wouldn't be holding Emerson's hair out of her face while she cried and threw up because she misses her Grandpa Clay so badly it's a visceral reaction for her. 

If I hadn't ever sat in classroom meetings with Kathy, seeing her kind heart and her drive for students and if she hadn't always come to me after meetings to whole-heartedly and sincerely thank me for walking her and her student's parents through a conversation I wouldn't have bawled in front of our Superintendent today as he told me she was gone. 

Why do we love? Why do we care about other? Why do we set ourselves up for pain and heartache? Because, my friends, it is worth the pain! I can't imagine not living with love in our lives. I can't imagine walking through life without relationships and people to love and hold. I wouldn't want to trade in the joy people bring into my life to avoid the pain of an ending. 

I grieved Brian's death. He did some terrible things and made bad choices, but I still grieved his death. And still do. But I still wouldn't trade in the four years we were married. I wouldn't wish to have never met him. The relationship that I had with that man helped to shape me into who I am today. He gave me two beautiful daughters and a brief marriage of love and happiness. I wouldn't trade that. 

Clay was a huge part of our lives in that he often dropped everything to help us. He doted on my two little girls and I will always remember how I would walk in for a visit and he would always say "Uh, where are the girls?" as he tried to peek around me to see if they were bounding in behind me. There are so many moments that I have tossed around in my head this last week, remembering the little things and the big things that made him wiggle his way into our hearts. I wouldn't trade any of that. 

Kathy was the kindest, gentlest soul. She so deeply cared about her students and their parents and her coworkers. She was filled with grace and peace and always was thinking about how to make her student's lives easier. She was such a powerful advocate for her students. I wouldn't trade that for anything. 

We have to love. Love makes life bearable. Love is what Father God gifted us! In the opening verse above he tells us out of faith, hope and love, love is the greatest! Faith is really important. That faith in Our Heavenly Father is what gets us a personal relationship with our Father. It's the driving force behind getting us to heaven! Hope gives us the strength to make it the next day. Hope gives us the belief that things will get better. And yet neither of these are as important as love. 

It is hard to love. Grief is a tough price to pay for love. The heartache and the pain. The tears and the sleepless night. The worry and the angst. The sadness and the feelings of despair. It's all so very uncomfortable. It's all so painful. It's all so...awful. But, the stronger the pain at the end, the more love you hold in your heart for that person. 

The deaths that have happened recently hurt so very badly. Because of love. So much love for these people. So much love, in fact, that we will learn to let them go and to be grateful for knowing them, and grateful that they are at peace. They are in heaven. They are completely and beautifully healed. And you know what? The love that they left us with will be enough to carry us through to heal also!  

It's tough right now and it hurts. Sometimes I can't breathe. Sometimes I want to pretend that it didn't happen. That it's not real. That my other dad is going to call to schedule a trip to the bowling alley with his girls. Or that Kathy will come to my office with her soft presence and ask me about one of her kids. But rather than that, I'm going to close my eyes, take a deep breath, and ask Father God to walk me through my grief and my tears and to remember the love they left behind. 

The greatest of these is love. I love you! You, reading this blog post, I love you! And Jesus loves you! And all together, we will fill the world with love and we will carry on. For Clay. For Kathy. For Brian. For all the loved ones we have lost. We will love. For that is the greatest thing of all.