Love was with me and thinking of me from the beginning of time. Love formed my innermost being and destined my life to be spent in the here and now, and sealed the beginning and the end with Jesus’ stamp of approval. Love saw fit to bring me up where country roads meet tobacco barns and bell towers, that when heard, sweep the sweetest of memories and faces to my recollection’s screen door. Love sat me on stage at three years old, declaring God’s love with the other penny saints and we marched with everything we had. Love started with a pentacostal twang, and kept rhythm with a tambourine. Love sings a special, a tribute to redemption’s pow’r, pow’r, wonder-working pow’r.
Love looks like a little lamb vacation bible school that is sure to have vanilla creme cookies and Kool-Aid. Love is sweaty summer tent revival meetings where cadence meets the grapevine drag and upper body side bend, and without a doubt-a head side to side for emphasis. Love stops until you get it, repeats it back to you, and wipes the sweat from its brow in fired up overflow; where the heat of summer and conviction drip off of everyone and everything. Love spits when it talks, saliva upon a yellow or red foam microphone cover.
Love is the older couples you grew up with at church who taught object lessons laced with such sweetness, that if you think about them now as an adult, you are overcome with such a sense of gratefulness for EVERY MOMENT. Love is the war vertean who helped you build a tree house at VBS, and with whom you helped pick up the remnants of your burned church timbers . Love is hard scooped ice cream from Taylor’s Dairy Bar. Love is a pork tenderloin sandwich and what I am sure was instant mashed potatoes and gravy (heaven regardless) from the local Chat ‘n’ Nibble in Eminence, where cigarette smoke was a way of baptism and initiation. Love looks like coffee sippers, red leather cushion high bar stools, flat grills, gravel drives, pinky rings, and double wides. Love retired from Hussey Copper, love succumbed to lung cancer, and whose hand you squeezed while absent in the body means to be present with Christ.
Love is Gatlinburg trips that outnumber new pairs of shoes you had across your lifetime, tunnels of love, knots in trees to rival Boo Radley, and courthouse steps. Love is the hard squeeze of a Spaetzle press, spoon tastes, and German accents. Love is the grandparents who loved you better than if you were their own, homemade ice cream under a shade tree, and golf cart driving lessons. Love means stopping for a second, while listening to Breathe (a worship song from way back), crying your eyes out in a 4’s dream land of reminiscence, and thanking Jesus for every tiny detail. Love appreciates the start, so it can really embrace the future. Love believes, and with affection, sees the hemming of foundation to growth.
Love is the faces, the voices, the influence, and the warmth of memories you would love to curl up with again and see with new eyes what you wish the eyes in the moment had hugged a little tighter. Love sees the relay race of saints gone before you that were handing you a baton to run a race they paved with prayers from knees bent to the earth. Love is where you come from and where you are going. Love never stops loving.
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