Love Overwhelming.
There’s times when I look at Holly (my wife), and I still can’t believe that we are actually married.
It’s been 22 and a half years, and her smile still stops me in my tracks, and makes me realize that I am very blessed to be with her. Her presence calms me, her strength astounds me, and her patience with my faults amazes me.
Why she chose me is still very much a mystery to me.
Such is the power of love. It’s mysterious, in that we cannot control it, and it’s dangerous, in that it can tear us apart if we let it. We sacrifice our time, our money, our sanity and sometimes our soul for it.
Because once you feel it, and it takes you over, you’ll never be the same again. You can feel love in many different ways, but the very best way is to feel it at the same time you receive it.
Then it becomes overwhelming.
There’s something incredibly life affirming to have someone tell you that they love you. Be it romantic, familial, or just friendship; when someone tell you that they love you, there’s this small part of our soul that seems to light up in joy.
It took me a while to figure out why that is, but I think I’ve come to something of an understanding.
Because when someone loves you, they are saying you are enough.
I think many of us struggle with the idea that we are deficient in some way. It often comes from our upbringing, or from a particularly difficult breakup of a romantic relationship that seemed to hold so much promise, until our dreams were shattered. However we got to that belief, it follows us through our everyday lives, overshadowing our joys and diluting our happiness.
Until that cloud is pierced by the light of love coming from another.
And when it’s matched by how you feel about them as well, we enter into a relationship of trust, of kindness, of affection, of support, and of esteem.
Love is the catalyst for our greatest changes, our deepest emotions, our fondest hopes and often our darkest fears. Love gives us strength to keep going, when we feel like we can’t go on.
Love might not make the world go around, but it does make it worth living in.
Especially in moments like I had today, where I was able to sit for a couple of minutes and just quietly observe my wife when she wasn’t aware I was watching.
I fell in love with her all over again, watching the sun highlight the colors in her hair, listening to that voice that grounds me and guides me, and seeing the goodness, kindness and honesty in her soul.
And once again, I was overwhelmed.
I hope you can feel that way today, even if just for a moment. I hope you can look at someone, be it a romantic partner, or a family member, or a friend, and just feel the joyous gratitude of love for their presence in your life, and the opportunity you have to be with them.
Holly always reminds me that love is verb, and that verbs are about doing not just feeling, so I hope today you can ‘do’ love by telling someone just how you feel about them.
There’s a great deal of power in those three little words.
May you share them and hear them, today and always.
(today's picture is for the other love in Holly's life - books 🙂 )
— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings