What Is Love?

It seems everyone wants to seek love. Do we really know what love is? Is love being a doormat? Is war love? What is it does anyone really know?

I have certain references that I think keep me connected to love. I think my first active act of love was when I decided to seek Jesus. I was just a child when I decided to do this. My parents did not attend any regular church. My mom and dad did have Christmas and Easter celebration for us. We had a Christmas tree and Easter eggs. At Christmas time my mom would make a little center piece for the coffee table with the Bible opened to the "New Testament" she cut holly and lay it around the Bible in the shape of a wreath. She talked about the baby Jesus's birth and how he was the Son of God.

All this celebration did not make much sense to me. The rest of the time life was kind of glum I grew to not trust this celebration that only was allowed at certain times of the year.

Anyway at the tender age of 8 years old I decided it was time to go investigate this Jesus guy. There was a small church near my house. One of the kids in my 3rd grade class went to this church and she invited me to come sing in the choir with her. It was close enough for me to walk to it.

My parents were still in bed asleep as I got up washed my face ate some toast and put on what I thought was my prettiest dress the first Sunday I went to this church. I could hear music playing as I approached the building and I followed the sound. It lead to a walk down a cement stair case. I grew very excited as I heard the music getting louder as I ran closer to the door. The door had a big glass window in it and the person playing the piano waved me in. They were singing a song that I knew so I just started singing it with them. At the end of the song the piano player deemed me a soprano and told me to sit in the soprano section.

It felt so good to me to be surrounded by this music and these people everyone seemed so happy and it wasn't even Christmas time or Easter. Several adult type people surrounded me at the end of service and asked me about where I lived and gave me some papers for my parents to fill out and for me to return to them next Sunday. I was so excited about my church experience that I ran all the way home. I burst through the door all smiling and happy and met with the stern faces of my parents wanting to know where I was and what I was doing....

It was a strict rule of theirs that we not leave the house when they were asleep and they were none to happy about me deciding to go to church on my own without consulting them. They knew their middle daughter(me) had an independent streak that none of their other children had. They really wanted to somehow punish me for my disobedience. While they were talking to me about what they were going to do my dear old dad had a revelation about what they were doing which in essences was to punish me for deciding on my own to go to church. My dads and mom's hearts were touched that their little girl wanted to know about God so they decided that my punishment would be to take my mom to church with me next week.

This is my first conscience memory of what love felt like. My family minus my dad got involved in the community thru this little church. My dad would get up and take me to church on cold mornings and when it was raining. Mom and I went sometimes but mom had gotten a new job and she had to work some Sundays. But she made up for thru the week by becoming a "Den Mother " for my brothers in cub scouts and she supported and encouraged in in my pursuit of singing in the choir and also the "Girl Scouts"