I was teaching a class recently and when the topic of “connecting with each other” came up, a woman laughed out loud. She even rolled her eyes at me and said the “days of loving our neighbor as ourselves are over.”
A bit deflated by her response at first, I understood, and her reaction was not unique – I felt people question this topic before and sometimes I even joke about it to point out the proverbial “elephant in the room” whether anyone says anything openly or not. I was grateful for this woman challenging my words because this began a conversation about what “connecting” actually means, and we connected even more.
The woman said many people annoyed her, and are selfish, which in turn hardened her heart and made her selfish back. She wasn’t even sure if she believed in love period. She said with little exception, “love” was nowhere to be found, at least not in the places she frequented – at the office, in the food store, the post office, the bank, even in her place of worship – people seemed disconnected and in a rush, annoyed at everything. Again, all things I’ve heard (and even felt) myself before.
But, I do believe the lens in which we view the world from transforms our experience of this precious gift called life. What we seek, we always find {Matthew 7:7}. Was the woman in the class really looking for love or was she secretly expecting a let down? She confessed she had low expectations of people based on prior experiences.
So where do we seek? Where is love?
I remember the first time I saw the play “Oliver”. I adored the young actor who played Oliver, and his sweet, soft voice singing “Where is Love?” literally made this little girl stream tears. He sang, “Where is love? Does it fall from skies above? Is it underneath the willow tree that I’ve been dreaming of?”
And with that, I began to bawl. I didn’t quite understand why at the time – there I was, just a child really, and feeling such incredible emotions. Now I get that it is in others that we see ourselves, that every emotion is just a reflection of our own humanity, and it is in that connection that we find the answer to Oliver’s question of “where is love?” Love is within us all, because God is love.
And, love is present, love is real – whether you believe in love or God or not, He is with us. Kind of like oxygen, no I can’t see it, but I trust it’s there because I’m breathing, and I trust we all have access to it because we are all alive as long as we don’t hold back our breath. But when a person experiences atrophy of the lungs and the lungs stiffen, it makes it near impossible to breathe. I thought about the woman in my class with her hardened heart, and wondered if when our hearts stiffen up, does it makes it near impossible to love?
Love, like oxygen, is universal, we all have access to it, as long as we don’t hold back – everyone who has a heart that beats knows love when they experience it…I felt love one day when the man pumping gas (who didn’t speak much English) looked at my little man and his eyes filled with tears. He grabbed his wallet to show me a picture of his daughter and said “2 years until she’s here.” If we only knew each others hearts – we are all the same…
At one time, I thought God was just in all things positive. I believed that God was in the good, and, while God is “light”, that assumption was technically not true – God was in Oliver’s sadness as he sang. God was in my tears as I felt the words sting my young, precious heart. God was in the gas attendant’s trembling hand as he showed me the picture of his daughter.
God is in everything, every smile, every heartache, every love story, every disappointment, every dream come true, every prayer answered or not – God is in the cracks, the stains, the imperfections, the commotion, the darkness. He is in the beauty, the laughter, the stillness, the light. He is with us through it all, and while some of us display God’s light through love, others are the embodiment of God’s amazing grace in our weaknesses.
It is all His miraculous presence enveloping us. When I seek Him, I see God in the anger, in the fear. I see God in the wretched, in the woman on her knees asking for forgiveness. I see God in the baby fast asleep and the beggar on the street. I see God in you and me and in every part of humanity, it’s God – that’s all I see.
I am in love with the beautiful messes we all are, the cracked fragmented beings walking this earth, every one of us – and I am in awe of His mercy, knowing God loves us through joy and pain, {whether we are on top of the mountain or down in the valley or anywhere in between} and asks us to come as we are. And when we do, when we seek Him, hardened hearts heal, we are transformed, and we find the love we are looking for.
