“Because that is what love does,” answered Papa.

I am loving this book ‘The Shack’ by Wm. Paul Young. I had yet another aha moment when I was reading the other day. This is a wonderful book I tell ya!

I got shivers up my spine when I read that line. I keep writing here how people saw the love Ole and I shared. I keep telling you how we would do anything for each other. I had a relationship of unconditional love with Ole “because that is what love does.”

I knew we loved each other heart and soul but until I read that line I really could not have told you why or how. Now I can.

♥ Because that is what love does ♥

I have told you that we had a perfect relationship. I have never said we didn’t argue or get angry with each other. We are real people in a real world with real trials and triumphs. But our love was perfect because that is what love does.

I believe in our society we have many broken people. Okay, maybe more bruised and beat up. We grow up with our bruised and battered ideas of what a perfect relationship would look like, feel like. We have our fantasies of the perfect lover, husband or wife.

Then we meet that person that resembles our fantasy lover and we say YES! Dreams do come true. But when the veil of ‘new love’ is lifted and the real world starts to pounce on our perfect relationship. Then the dreams and fantasies are punished, caged or slaughtered and the love dies. Or what we thought was love.

It never happened with Ole and me. When we were married, a friend of Ole’s said to me that even if we get 5 good years together, at least we had that. There was no way I was getting married for just 5 good years. Neither was Ole. We were in this for the long haul, for better or worse, in sickness and in health.

♥ Because that is what love does ♥

Even when we were arguing, we still loved each other. There were times in the early days when we had many arguments that I would think I could not continue. But then I would think of the alternative of living without Ole….I would cry so hard. I could not imagine my life without him. I would sob almost as hard as I did when he died. So we woke up the next day and moved forward. I said FORWARD not on. We delt with our problems and grew in our love for each other.

♥ Because that is what love does ♥

♥Love is forgiveness. If you hold on to the hurts there is no room for love. I was famous for holding a grudge when I was young. Hurt my feelings and I didn’t talk to you for years. Ole made me see how stupid that really was. I can’t give you specifics how he made me see that just that loving him did open my eyes.

I had put all my hurt in a cage and shut the door so it could never get out. The hurt would just sit in there and howl and bang on the walls in the very depths of my being. How could there be room for love in there? I had to open the door and let it out and move forward.

♥ Love is acceptance. We don’t all think alike and thank heavens for that. If you talked to any of my or Ole’s childhood friends, they would say the same about both of us. We were both different than the rest. The friends we had, the families we grew up in….we thought and were different from them.

In that difference we both saw a wonderful loving being in each other. I didn’t want Ole to change. Okay, I wanted him to chew with his mouth closed and put the toilet lid down. But other than that, I loved who he was and how he thought. He was the most wonderful man I have EVER met.

♥ Love is allowing. Allow the other person to be who they really are. We hide behind so many masks. We have the mask of mother, father, friend, daughter, son, employer, employee, baker, jailer, lover, alcoholic, abuser, slut… The list is endless and we choose at any given moment what mask is needed for any given situation.

We wear the masks because we are afraid. We are afraid that if people saw or knew the real person inside, maybe we would be rejected, ridiculed, abused or judged. But maybe we would really be loved, accepted and adored.

♥ Because that is what love does ♥

Open the cages in your soul and let the pain and hurt escape. Put away your masks and allow the beauty of your true self to shine. Revel in your different-ness and allow other people the same courtesy.

♥ Because that is what love does ♥

Passionate regards….Brenda

Tags: acceptance, allowing, because that is what love does, forgiveness, hurts, love, lover, masks, move forward, pain, perfect love, problems, relationships, The Shack, true self, Wm. Paul Young

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 7th, 2010 at 9:07 am and is filed under Passionate Results. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.