I learned about love in a scrap and bits sort of way. Looking and learning from other people along the way.
One of the greatest lessons about loving another person came from some unlikely suspects. In a Wesleyan Camp in upstate New York. Picture two people fresh out of the "Jack Sprat" sort of fairy tale. An odd couple for sure and far from the stereotypical "I'll take a faux-hawk with my skinny jeans" kind of youth pastors. But for all their non-relevance on the superficial, their genuine love for the teens and transparency about themselves resonated to a group of high-schoolers and one college age seeker.
She told about her husband's quirky -to be kind- obsession with all things LEGO. He had buckets of the little plastic pieces all over their house. Tens of thousands of them. He even opened his wallet on the spot to pull out some sort of LEGO officianado membership card. Groans from the audience.
And then she shared her pet peeve...
stepping on a woebegone LEGO piece in her bare feet at night.
We all felt her pain.
Then she rocked my world. "Sometimes to love another person is to just take the LEGO out of your foot and go back to bed. Not yelling, not berating, just take the LEGO out of your foot and love your partner enough to just go back to bed."
And I know I haven't always heeded this sage advice. I've guilted, I've remembered, I've bemoaned the fact that what I find important doesn't always line up with those in my life. Oh, and if I take the LEGO out of my foot..I've just thrown it in the face of the perpetrator.
So I'm trying something different in this season of LOVE. Maybe I'll try a little grace this Valentine's season. Maybe with each little insignificance, I'll be whispering "I love you." I love you when I put the toilet seat down. I love you when I put your dishes away. I love you when I make the bed.
And I'll bend my ear to the whispers of love around me. I'll try to hear your love when you pay our credit card bill. I'll hear it when you fold the laundry. I'll hear it when you pick up milk on the way home. And when you ask me to join you on the sofa.
I'll just take the LEGO out of my foot and go back to bed.
"Love..is not easily angered, It keeps no record of wrongs." I Cor. 13:4-5
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