Lying in a hospital bed; I had sensors all over my abdomen and on my arms. Monitoring me and my child within me; my body had stopped providing him with nourishment and he was already a week past his due date. The Dr’s were going to induce. While, at the time, I wasn’t a Christian or faithful in any way to any thing, in those moments, I was so hopeful and wishful for a natural birth and for everything to go well. I believed, fully, in the strength of my own body to bring forth life. The first contraction came, and suddenly an explosion of busy people all around me; the chord was around his neck and his heart had stopped. Immediate C-section was ordered and I was plunged into internal chaos and fear. I’d attended all those classes, I had read all the books. I didn’t want a spinal, my back had been through so many injuries already. They wheeled me away, and within 10 minutes an anesthesiologist was expertly slipping a long needle between my vertebrae. An incredible experience, incredibly stressful and scary. You’re awake the entire time, your lower half of your body gone from your brain’s ability to feel it while surgeons remove your inner organs in order to get at the child tucked safely within. It felt both like a moment and hours before they lay my perfect first born son in my arms. He was perfect in every way; small at 6lbs, but then so am I and my body couldn’t produce a bigger child. All my expectations of what was nature and natural were shattered. Without our modern medical system both my son and I would have died in a natural childbirth. I didn’t know until I attempted a natural birth with my second son that my hips can’t open to allow for a natural dilation.

My first son. As a youth, I was one of those girls absolutely baffled by the silliness of my peers as they cooed and babbled at other people’s babies; children were not something I really considered as something I wanted for myself until my 30s loomed. I enjoyed kids, playing games and being silly, and entertaining them; but I wasn’t someone reaching for other women’s babies.

But then, suddenly, there he was. A perfect spark of light in my abdomen. I believed I was going to be a very bad parent, and feared I might have a less-than perfect baby, so we had one of those fancy 3-D Scans of my son done when I was about 11 weeks along. I will forever remember the absolute awe I felt when I saw his perfection on a screen… I remember thinking, we’d better have a good dental plan, because he was already sucking his perfectly formed thumb.

What is it, to love someone? To be loved?

I didn’t know real, unconditional love before my first son. Or how the heart can stretch and expand to encompass the second child. How we’re made, perfectly, to be one with our children.

I remember as a youth, going to Japan, and learning that there is no equivalent word to ‘Love’ in Japanese. Which, after some time of learning, in many ways makes sense. How can one simple, single, monosyllabic word encompass so very much?

What is it to love another person that’s unrelated to you? How can a single word encompass all the different meanings we ascribe to it? Love for your child; love for a spouse or a friend; love for your pet; love for your job; love for nature; love for your passions; love… for God. Accepting love from God.

Love. It’s not quite what the books tell us.

As a little girl, I fantasized about all the fairy tales; being swept off my feet by some handsome prince. I loved the idea of a beautiful fairy gown. I loved the idea of love as it is portrayed in books. But, that’s not love, that’s just a silly girl who found her understanding of reality through books. By the time I was in puberty, men were not to be trusted, and love was this really strange concept. My family, we’re all a bit careful with showing our feelings, and great outpourings of emotions were definitely not “us.” I remember my shock and complete void of comprehension the day my mother took me in her arms at 16 and told me how much she loved me, just as I was to leave to live abroad for awhile. It’s only looking back as an adult that I see all the ways my mother and my stepfather poured their hearts into my upbringing with their love. Love wasn’t spoken of, but it was very much embedded in every gesture and action, in every correction, in every tutoring session, in every very necessary act of living.

Parents. They, we, us… Love becomes infused in the very fabric of our skin, we can’t help but walk through this world without some component of love. But it’s not the same Love as a romantic love.

That’s a hard one. I’m probably not qualified to walk the path of discussing romantic love. I know lust, I know what it is to be owned and possessed, I know desire and I know what it is to be desired. I know love of a good friend. I know love that lasts a lifetime. Marital love? that lasts a lifetime? For better or worse, in good and in bad? Nope. I haven’t yet experienced that. But I have observed it in my parents, my mother and my dad who adopted me. In the way my stepfather accepted me and all my fiesty small person self; in the way, even still, my parents live in a beautiful harmony and acceptance of each other. The way my mother supports my dad’s love for setting up models and villages and small fantasy worlds around the house; his love for Christmas and lights and fun. The way my dad calls my mom every time she goes somewhere without him; how he makes sure she is never alone when she’s doing her work with others. They adapted their lives to be there for each other, and have an unspoken and absolute acceptance and love for each other that I can only hope will someday be something I can experience too. Without my dad setting these standards, I’m not sure I would have been able to accept or understand or grasp the idea of unconditional love from God our father.

Not sure where I’m headed with this, and this post won’t be published tonight. Just sketching out some ideas… the Holy Spirit is not to be denied when he says to me… write. write. write. So here I am at midnight, writing. **and here I am again at 8am… writing writing… trying to pull together the fragments of an idea that blossomed in my head yesterday and would not be put away**

Love.

The first time I felt loved, unconditionally, wholly, fully; a love so pure the air felt like it crackled with fullness… I was alone. Completely. More than a kilometre away from the next human being. Far out into the wilderness, hiking along a favourite trail, I felt the soft kiss of the first flake of snow for the year. I remember pausing, the silence grew around me and took on a shape and dimension that you have to experience to fully appreciate. It’s as if the smallest fibre of sound was magnified, and yet I still heard silence. I looked up, my eyes catching the glimpse of the greyness of the skies framed by the arching branches of the cedars and pine trees far above me, their spiky branches adding contrast and depths to the otherwise monochrome world. As I looked, the delicate dance and fall of the first snowfall of the year began in earnest, and I stood there looking up and all I can say is that I was lifted, held, and embraced. I remember just falling to my knees as I truly encountered God for the first time. Truly allowed His voice and His presence to surround me. I wept, and I prayed. I opened myself to Him in ways I didn’t know a soul could be opened.

And so. Love. We are earthly beings, and we love each other. We are built to love. We are built to cherish those who come from us and those who made us. We are built to love a partner, and to love our closest friends.

We are built to gaze into the eternity of the other, and to share in our pains and our sicknesses, to appreciate our wisdom and our failures. We are built to learn to give of ourselves in order to disappear into the other.

When that core foundation of who a human being is, is violated by violence and abuse, by torturous language and hurtful ideas, we learn to build walls to protect the core of light that was sparked the moment we are brought into being.

….

Do you ever pause and reflect on how you are made? The strands of DNA that are uniquely you? Numbers and beautiful precision. An intentional structure… and in all of us we have strands that are broken, frayed, and fragmented from the traumas and hurts inflicted upon those who come before us. God built us to Love, but with the very first bite of the apple, we began splitting apart the finest threads that support the fabric of who we are, that make us His children.

God wants his children back, and He is trying to connect to us so that we can begin to find ways to heal each other. Each time I attend anything resembling a healing Mass, I feel doors inside me begin to open, walls start to crumble; I very much feel there are parts of me that are barren moonscapes of rubble as the walls tumble down. I weep frequently at the very idea of being loved without cost, or consequence. Without needing to be useful or helpful, somehow there is still a love – full and complete and accepting.

As broken children of God, we are all called to find ways back to Him. He has given us so many gifts, but among the measurable and immeasurable gifts, He has given us each other and a church… which is more like a hospital than it is a social construct. He has given us the ability to fully love one another and heal each other so that as individuals and as a whole, we can come before Him and join Him into eternity. We must love as children love, in trust and in charity and in mercy and in acceptance. Love without question, and love without judgment.

….

Will you pray with me tonight?

Lord, heavenly Father, the one who loves beyond all words, beyond all measure.

Thank you for the gift of this life. Thank you for the children, the friends, and the family you have filled my life with. Thank you for the moments when you show me your everlasting Glory in a sunset, or you shine your light upon my head and warm me far beyond the warmth of the sun.

Lord, have mercy me, a sinner and a broken child. All that I have is from you, and through you and a result of you. I pray that I may do your will and help others to find you and know your love.

Lord, I am pulled to your light as a flower seeks the sunlight; I wish to fill my senses with the glory of this world you have given to us so that we might find you among the clues you have seeded our existence with. -Amen

God bless you. I pray you find love in your day today.