Building a Proper Definition of Love – Part I

Last night as we sat around a table eating pizza as a family I looked at my oldest boy and felt the little nudge I’ve been feeling a lot lately. The nudge to make sure he is secure. He’s going through some minor changes. Not like the kind where pimples form and girls are scary, the kind where he’s not a pudgy squeezable, cutie pie who I pull into my lap and nuzzle anymore.

He’s 8, and he’s long and skinny, and his two front teeth are missing, and he is more knowledgeable than questioning and he’s wanting to grow his hair long and it’s all a bit awkward. I’ve realized that I DON’T pull him into my lap as much as I used to, it’s not as comfortable as it used to be because he’s become so gangly and his elbows are sharp. He still needs it though. I don’t know if he knows that he needs it, but I’m noticing that he’s feeling the “in between” of his boyhood and babyhood and I sorrow with him at it’s passing. He’s been a big boy for a long time, but watching his cheeks thin out and his legs stretch out and seeing his independence grow is a development that has changed our relationship a tiny bit.

Last night I looked at him, and with the encouragement of that nudge I said, “Owen, do you know how much I love you?”

He shrugged his shoulders and gave me a half smile. The kind that told me he knew but wanted desperately to hear the answer anyway.

As I began to form an answer I was flooded with a concept that hadn’t really revealed itself to me before. No matter how deeply I convince him that I love him, it won’t matter if the definition I give him of love is wrong. I proceeded to mouth my affection for him in terms of size and depth, but I was completely distracted by this new thought.

What if I tell him that I love him but his observation of my love is more filled with correction and annoyance than in encouragement and pleasure? What if my impatience, and lack of self-control is more prominent in his mind than my joy and strength? What if my poor judgment and lack of time for him outweigh my wisdom and priorities laid in balance? Love is an accumulation of all of these things in direct relation to him. Love is his interpretation of my actions (not just my words) toward him, about him and because of him. No matter how broad, how deep, how vast and how lasting my love toward him is, it won’t build security in him unless it is perceived by him as true, unyielding and unconditional. Have I shown that to him?

We have a friend who, when asked about a great deal on something, described it as a “truck load of mayonnaise.” He doesn’t like mayonnaise and “a great deal on a truck load of mayonnaise, is still a truck load of mayonnaise.” I don’t want that same attitude to grow in my children regarding my love for them.

No matter how broad, how deep, how vast and how lasting my love toward him is, it won’t build security in him unless it is perceived by him as true, unyielding and unconditional.

If I am simply spouting “I love you” but emulating “I don’t need you, you’re in my way, you frustrate and anger me and I’m tired of you…” how much of that definition of love will they want? How much of it will they begin to show others and how insecure will they become?

I trust that my love is better defined than that, but I am not too proud to get a check-up. I will look more closely at my actions and try to let “I love you’s” speak from the flow of my actions in harmony with the remarks of my lips.

“If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” 1 Corinthians 13:1