Love Changes Everything

If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t have love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.

If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing His mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump!” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing.

If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere.  So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, 
I am bankrupt without love.

~ 1^st Corinthians 13:1-3 [The Message]

The late adolescent and teenage years are a difficult time for everyone: the teen, their parents, their friends, and the world around them.  All of a sudden your darling, loving child has turned into a sad, surly creature that can’t possibly smile (when you are around) because their face might break. The youngster who clung to your hand and lavishly handed out hugs is long gone.  If the young person in question is female, you can multiply these reactions about a thousand-fold.  As the parent, you have suddenly become a pariah who has lost 98% of their brains—you’re lucky if they concede you the 2%!

I have three daughters, born two years or less apart.  Consequently, having a teen queen in the house was an ongoing [never-ending] process.  One child in particular waged a constant battle against my presence, my parenting, my utter and total lack of understanding of the fragile state of her being.  Animosity became her shield and buttress, and as any mother with a teenage daughter can attest, after awhile it really gets to you.  Feeling battered, bruised, ignorant and unloved eventually takes a toll. 

When she turned 14, I urged my daughter to participate in a mission trip as both of her sisters did at that age.  She jumped at the chance – immediately throwing herself into the process of that year’s trip to Costa Rica.  For a few precious weeks we had a common goal and a blessed ceasefire.  Then I made the mistake of opening my mouth at the airport in Indianapolis, and she stalked onto the plane leaving behind a frosty trail of brittle silence. My journey back home was awash with many tears.

That evening, I went in the kitchen to make a cup of tea.  Pulling out the silverware drawer, I found a torn piece of notebook paper hastily folded into a note, with “Mom” scribbled in my daughter’s pre-physician handwriting.  Inside it simply said, “I love you.”  There was another one underneath my pillow on the bed, saying “I will miss you so much.”  The next morning I found one in my underwear drawer – same style, similar message.  When I checked my email, there was a message from my precious child, apologizing for her angst and attitudes, and proclaiming her undying, ever present love.

I placed those notes in my Bible, and they are there to this day.  It has been over a decade since they were written, but when she and I have the occasional tiff or whenever my heart is heavy, I pull them out and rejoice in the truth that love changes everything.

Love,
Love changes everything:
Hands and faces, earth and sky.
Love,
Love changes everything:
How you live and how you die.
Love
Will turn your world around,
And that world will last for ever.
Love,
Love changes everything,
Brings you glory, brings you shame,
Nothing in the world will ever be the same.