Friday, September 15, 2006

I've Lost that Lovin' Feeling ... Or Maybe Not

I'm on the email list of one of the pastors I work with and he wrote a piece on love that just came to my inbox. I'd connect you to the article but they seem to be having website trouble so let me just say that it did exactly what it was supposed to do ... made me think.

So . . . thinking about love brought me to this: I don’t know that I’ve ever felt loved by God or another human. And therefore, I don’t know if I can long for it the way that we often speak of that kind of longing. I don’t discount that God loves me. I believe/faith that to be true. I just can't say that I've felt it. And feeling is a large part of this picture. And while I know my mother loves me, for most of my thinking life (i.e. after my dad died when I was ten), I’ve often felt I had to care for her. Obviously, with that whole "dying" thing, I never really connected with a daddy’s love because he dropped out of the picture too early. And, no man has ever really made me feel that connected to him. I wanted to be "in love." I wanted to "feel love." But I can't say that I'd know what it looked like if it happened upon me.

My friends come close. And maybe I’m making more of it than it really is, but love is a tricky thing for me.

What about you? Felt it? Known it? Can you describe it?

*By the way, don't fret for me. This is not an anquished plea. I probably have some warped expectation regarding a feeling with roots deep within my past that me and a good therapist could unearth. I'm just curious if love is more an action for me than a feeling and if that's true for others as well.

2 comments:

Finding the Happy said...

I read your blog on Friday. It's Sunday night and no one has commented and I feel your questions need answering...as difficult and profound they are. So, in my most humble way, I am going to attempt to answer...here goes...

Felt it? Oh....yessssss
Known it? Ditto
Can you describe it? It's as if every single cell in your body awakens...you connect in places you didn't even know existed until "they" came into your life.

KC said...

First, thanks you two for your insights. My friend’s article and the thinking reflected in my blog post fueled several interesting conversations this weekend. For instance, Roger and I wondered if we don’t “feel” the love of God when we love others. The “rightness” of those acts filling us with joy and wonder and whatever. Ken told me that he thinks we may never feel God in God’s full sense until we stand in God’s presence. Traci and I chatted a bit about what makes us unique and whether or not when we are most living out of that aspect of our personality/skill set/creative-ness if we aren’t then living as creations “in the image of God” and actually reflecting that image. And now, there are these two comments which pick up on just the whole idea of feeling love in general. Very interesting . . . ,