but we love.

: I find the single most remarkable thing about love is the way it is doomed to pain and loss from its onset. Whether it is the spouse that outlives their lover, or loses them to another, there is no escaping the most solemn of inevitabilities. That two people would commit themselves to all of this hurt and heartache in spite of this, all in the name of experiencing genuine connection for even a moment, is all the proof I need that madness exists, and it is awfully beautiful. ~Beau Taplin : 

I have been in love with a man for the last two years. We aren't together now, and we know the circumstances surrounding our relationship are impossible to overcome. But we love. We hurt. As we sat on my couch last night, staring at each other with tears streaming down our faces...I had to ask myself again, What does love look like? 

Is this it? 

Is it what Beau Taplin says? Is love doomed to pain and loss?

The old Kinsey would've said no. I would've quoted scripture and sonnets and proven to you that love endures all things, hopes all things. Love is beauty and peace, kindness and all things good. But I don't know that that is the whole truth. My favorite scripture in the Bible is Song of Solomon 8:6-7... Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is strong as death, jealousy is fierce as the grave. It's flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the Lord. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it out... That doesn't sound like frolicking through the fields of love to me. It sounds hard. Like a torrent...like a hurricane. 

Love is a natural disaster. 

It encompasses life and death, and every moment in between. It pulls and pushes and tugs at the very thread of you. To love successfully you have to lose yourself, while simultaneously finding yourself and valuing yourself...and the ones you love. It's knowing when to be vulnerable and then hard, soft and then strong. Love is sacrifice and confrontation. It's never letting go of the hope of tomorrow, while letting go of all that holds you captive from today. 

How do we love like that? 

Can we even? 

See, I know how God loves. I get how He loves us. Unconditionally. Constantly. Without fear or second guesses. When I think of how God has loved me I think of the ocean...He loves me like the tide. His love is never still. He moves and adjust and follows me in and out of every situation. From still waters like glass to raging storms, there He is. Never hiding. Never shying away. Never put off by my mistakes or shame. He is just so constant. He sacrifices everything. Yet still manages to honor me enough to let me make my own choices. Even when they go against the tide. 

And that's it, right? 

That's the picture of how we should love...but do we? 

I want to tell you the story of Cliff. Cliff had a best friend his entire life named Bobby. Cliff and Bobby were hell raisers of the worst kind...I knew them in what would be their golden years and they were still full of piss and vinegar. Drug addicts, womanizers, rebels against the world. They were truly soulmates though. When I think about love, I think of these two. As they got older and sober and decided to raise families, their lives slowly shifted to the mundane. They would drink Corona and watch Nascar. They would work on their hotrods and talk about what idiots they crossed paths with. They planted their gardens, and sat on porches. Everyone thought they were so ornery that they would live forever...but Cliff got cancer. The ugly aggressive kind. Three times a week Bobby would drive Cliff three and a half hours to his treatments, then drive him back home so he could be with his son at night.  I'm not exactly sure how Cliff ended up finding himself in church. Maybe it was out of sheer desperation. Maybe it was for his wife. But there he sat, and I swear I have never seen the hand of God touch someone like it touched Cliff. I watched as his body was eaten away by cancer, but I don't know that I've ever seen someone so alive. I think for the first time in his life, Cliff felt what it truly was to be loved unconditionally. And that love rolled straight through him and onto everyone he came into contact with.  Except Bobby. Bobby was a sceptic. He knew the Bible front to back, but he had seen too much in his life to trust it. 

As Cliff neared the end of his life, his time was stolen away by drugs to manage his pain. He was rarely in his right mind. But Bobby never left his side. One day when it was time to dose him with pain meds again, Cliff told Bobby he didn't want them. They needed to have a serious talk and he needed to be clear. I can't imagine the pain that racked his body in those final hours of life. But what he needed to say to Bobby was simple and clear. He couldn't...he refused to die until he knew he would see Bobby in heaven. He told him that of all the adventures they had, surely death would be the greatest one. And he knew he wasn't going it alone. Finally, Bobby relented. I don't know what the rest of their conversation was that day...I doubt it was one of theology or debate. I like to think it was a love agreement. The pact of two soulmates to never let go of each other. Even in death. 

Cliff died shortly after. 

And Bobby followed just two short years after that. 

When I think of these men, and the lives they lived and the legacy they have left, I'm so glad to be part of it. Despite all the mistakes and wounds they were responsible for along the way, they somehow managed to love each other so well. And I can see pieces of them that have trickled down through the generations that have followed. You see, Bobby is my dad. This story is part of my legacy. And dear sweet Jesus knows that Bobby McGee saddled me with a shit ton of problems. But he also showed me what sacrifice looks like. 

He showed me unconditional love. 

And it is excruciating. 

So, for today...my answer is yes. I think Beau Taplin is onto something. I think love, in it's truest depths, sets us up for the greatest pain of our lives. And honestly, I wouldn't have it any other way. 


: It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. ~Theodore Roosevelt :