The Gift

How do you know you love someone? How do you show someone you love them? If you love someone how do you treat them? 

I think there are some people who just feel and understand love on an emotional, feeling level. Those are the people that just do love and know it. I, on the other hand, cannot say for sure that I have ever "felt" love. My mind and thoughts run my actions, my beliefs, and even my emotions to a significant degree. I "knew" I loved people, but not because I felt any particular way about them just because I had decided that I cared and no matter what I would stand by them and try to understand them. But if I was ever asked, "Well, how do you feel about them?" my mind and heart would swirl with turmoil and confusion and my reply would be, "Well, I don't know!" 

To say this was just a little concerning to a teenage girl who wanted nothing else than to grow up, fall in love, get married, and raise a family, is a major understatement. I was worried. Really worried that I would never fall in love and be able to get married because I wouldn't recognize love when I found it. My version of love just never matched what people described in any books--romance novels, psychology reports, or even the advice of myriad relationship experts--and no one could tell me what it actually "looked like" or "meant" to feel love for someone. 

I suppose that's why I vividly remember the moment I realized I loved my now-husband, Cody. It was the afternoon of July 13th. I had known him for exactly 30 days and seen him exactly 10 times. I remember I was pondering my concerns about dating him. I had a list (anyone who knows me knows I'm always making lists) and I was methodically working my way through the list and asking myself, "If this never changes, do I still want to spend time with him and maybe spend the rest of my life with him?" For every item on the list I wrote a mental 5-paragraph essay outlining the cost-benefit analysis with possible complications and contraindications (anyone who knows me knows I'm also always writing mental 5-paragraph essays). As I made my way slowly down the list, forming a conclusion for each item about why I could or could not imagine my life with Cody if these "negative" traits continued for the next 50+ years, I was stunned to realize that I didn't care. True, methodical me still wanted to know that I'd logically and rationally though things through, yet despite the potential problems and concerns every single essay ended with, "It doesn't matter because he's family." 

For those who may not know or remember, family is my word to describe any and every person I have chosen to love no matter what. The ones I would stand with, go through the hard and hell with, and find the good in--always--no matter what. To realize that Cody was family, simple as that, was to realize that I loved him and would love him through "hell and high water" always focusing on the good. Did I "feel" anything? No. Nothing but terrified because I certainly wasn't planning on being in love with someone I'd only known for a month, but otherwise, just a mental certainty that Cody was family. And that was everything. 

Except that while I might have figured out how I know I love someone, I still didn't know exactly what I was supposed to do for people I loved. I had ideas, of course. I figured if I love someone it's a good idea to be kind to them, do nice things, avoid hurting them with angry words, respect them, help them with their goals...things like that. 

Full disclosure, I think it's possible that I have a people-pleasing self-sacrificing tendency that, I'm beginning to realize, is perhaps more than a bit unhealthy. So when my husband said he wanted to go back to school and get a 4.0 GPA for scholarship reasons, I said to myself, "Okay, what do I need to be and do for him to succeed?" 

In a matter of seconds I had completed yet another list. This one about everything I could possibly do to help my husband succeed in school. I took my analytical brain and started keeping track of his school schedule and assignments. I would remind him of upcoming tasks, ask if he'd finished things, question him about his grades and his plans for completing larger assignments. I become a hovering wife because only by being there always, setting aside my tasks to help him with his tasks and goals could I show him I loved him.

But then when life things came up like my ultrasound the first week of school, a car accident, prenatal appointments, a memorial for my friend's baby, and my emotional breakdowns due to stress and pregnancy, I felt sooo guilty because I was afraid I was interrupting him and keeping him from achieving his important work and goals. 

I became even more determined to do everything, handle everything, and plan for everything (which turned out to be impossible because how do you plan for car trouble and death?). I figured that if I could handle everything--his schedule, my schedule, our family's schedules, and the bumps in the road on my own then he would be able to achieve his dream, and loving him meant I did everything I could to help him achieve his dream, right? 

Above all, I was terrified that he would fail and it would be because I wasn't supportive enough or problem-free enough for him to have the time and space he needed to succeed. 

Well, things were going terribly a couple weeks ago. I'd reached a point of exhaustion and burnout that left me unmotivated and unenthusiastic about life. I just didn't see how I could keep up with everything everyone needed. I felt like I was failing my husband, my baby, my friends, my mom, everyone else in my family that wanted updates about the pregnancy but I just couldn't handle it. Yet, if I stopped trying to handle it all they might fall and fail and it would mean that I didn't love them and they would believe I didn't care and they would give up and it would all be my fault!!!!!

Bless my husband for being wiser than me. After a long, emotional conversation during which he tried to understand what was really going on as I rambled incoherently about my ever-growing to-do list, he said, "Esther, what if you stopped worrying about and trying to do everyone else's jobs and just did what you need to do?" 

I paused and considered, then replied, "Well then I'd have nothing to do but try to keep food down and rest for the baby!" 

He said, "Seems like that's the answer." 

Desperate for any solution, I decided to try. Every day, every minute I tried to let go of worry and let other people do their own lives and handle their own things without me. I told myself that unless someone specifically and directly asked me for help, I was not allowed to jump in and do it for them. It was one of the hardest things I've ever tried to do and a few weeks in I realized how habitual it had become for me to worry about everything for everyone and jump in before I was asked. 

I remember laying on the floor after a yoga session watching my husband who seemed to have forgotten about a rapidly approaching statistics exam and I was stressed and afraid. Any way I looked at the situation I was convinced he was going to space out and completely forget to study unless I stepped in and took over his study plans and habits.

But I wasn't allowed to do that. 

All I was allowed to do was love him and NOT worry about the things in his life that were his responsibility. 

That was unbelievably hard. 

How in the world do you love someone without being afraid for them? How does a mother love a child and not fear for their safety and success? In light of my friend's recent loss, how could I, a soon to be mother, love my baby and not be afraid of what could happen to it? How does a wife love her husband and hope for his success without worrying about what might stop him from his goals? How does a friend love her friend who is struggling with suicidal thoughts and severe depression and not worry that she might wake up to terrible news one day? How do you love anyone and not worry about the scary possibilities that flood the mind? How do you love and not jump in to save the people you love from failure, from disappointment, from the world, from accidents, and from themselves? 

Is it even possible to love without fear? 

For the last six years I have tried to remember the mantra, "Let us be motivated by love, not fear." Yet as I lay on that yoga mat, a bundle of nerves and anxious thoughts, trying not to be afraid of absolutely everything, I wondered, "Is there such a thing as love without fear?"

At this point I'm emotional, pregnant, blood-sugar low, and sobbing on the yoga mat (that thing got a snotty bath) when to my mind came the least comforting truth I could imagine--

Perfect love casteth out fear. 

No. 

Perfect love casteth out fear. 

NO.

Esther, Perfect love casteth out fear. 

I can't!!

To love perfectly we must cast out our fears. All fears. Because "there is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment."

Fear torments. It torments you because you can't live in peace, always anticipating the next terrible thing. It torments those you love because you can't seem to let them be at peace. Fear hath torment and love...does not. 

In a moment of heart wrenching clarity I realized that my attempts to love with fear were hurting the people I loved. I had been trying to plan for every contingency, every possibility, and every problem. I was trying to make their choices for them. I was trying to "fix" them because I didn't have faith in them. I didn't trust them. Maybe they weren't making the choices I would make, and maybe they weren't going to make the choices I hoped they would, but if I loved them, I needed to let them live their lives. 

Every time I took over my husband's schoolwork I was sending the message that I didn't believe he could handle it. Every time I hid a problem or tried to do all the housework to the point of serious exhaustion I was saying, "I don't think you're capable of handling hard things." 

When I worried about my baby and tried to do everything "right" I ended up sick. I didn't trust the baby to know what it needed and I didn't trust it to grow properly on its own (although it knows more about growing than I do). 

My attempts to take all the hard away from my friend sent the message that "I think you're weak and broken and you can't handle this" or "I don't trust you to make decisions about your life and your health because I'm assuming you're going to make the wrong ones." And no matter what mental state you're in, that is never something you want to hear or feel from a friend. 

If you love someone you respect them by trusting them and allowing them to do things their way.  [Within reason, of course. Obviously if you have responsibilities to your work, organization, or ethical procedures, follow those and prevent harmful behaviors, but not in an attempt to "fix" someone, just to keep them safe if they are in your care.] If you love someone you are kind even when you don't understand. You withhold judgement. You keep your personal, unsolicited opinions and doubts to yourself. If you love someone you don't hurt them by taking away their humanity, their choice, their power. If you love someone you believe they are capable of achieving their goals. And, if you love someone, you're there when they ask you for help, willing to do what they need you to do, without doing what you think they need. Because if you love someone, you let them live their life. 

If you love someone you cast out every fear and every doubt about them. If you love someone you daily choose to stop worrying about them. You give them the gift of perfect love--of respect--for who they are, who they are choosing to be, and who they will become, allowing them to find their own way to where they want to be. 

1 John 4:18