Love Is In The Air

‎"When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your 

name is safe in their mouth." Billy - age 4

I wonder how true this is? It sounds pretty much true to me! I know that there is nothing more wonderful than hearing my name called from the mouth of My Love. It reaches my heart, melts me just a little. Thinking back over a lifetime, I could say I knew by the tone of voice if someone was calling me from a heart of love or if I was being called out for discipline- know what I mean? 
Today, I will be teaching a group of expectant mothers about comfort measures for labour. We will be talking about ways to relax during labour and what it takes to relax. We will also be exploring the purpose of hormones. We have been designed remarkably well for this very job of bearing babies, right down to a spray of hormones, measured in 1/1000th of a ml. That is so tiny, so remarkable, perhaps a miracle. Doctors have tried to create a substitute for this to be used during labour, but it isn't a very satisfying substitute at all! Oxytocin is known in some circles as the "love" hormone. It is the hormone we all have available in our bodies, the one that makes us have a warm flush when we have a meaningful hug or kiss--or even a compliment! It is responsible for mothers' milk being let down and for baby's propulsion from mother's body during birth. It is responsible for conception in a loving relationship! Yes, we are fearfully and wonderfully made--down to the tiniest detail!
Some time ago, my lover and I decided to make love work. It is work, a decision each and every day. Days like today, when I awoke to a deep red rose on the table with a lovingly penned card, not so hard. But days when I get out of the wrong side of the bed or have a headache or am rushed or have other things on my mind, I need to think about love and work at it. I have been given a key to this, in 1Cor 13:

1 Corinthians 13

The Way of Love

 ¹ If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. ²If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all 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. ^3-7If 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'm bankrupt without love. 

   Love never gives up. 
   Love cares more for others than for self. 
   Love doesn't want what it doesn't have. 
   Love doesn't strut, 
   Doesn't have a swelled head, 
   Doesn't force itself on others, 
   Isn't always "me first," 
   Doesn't fly off the handle, 
   Doesn't keep score of the sins of others, 
   Doesn't revel when others grovel, 
   Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, 
   Puts up with anything, 
   Trusts God always, 
   Always looks for the best, 
   Never looks back, 
   But keeps going to the end.

 ^8-10Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.

 ¹¹When I was an infant at my mother's breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.

 ¹²We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!

 ¹³But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.

We have entered into a challenge, a Five Week Love Challenge through the organization "5 Love Languages" Take the challenge here. I would encourage you to seek out how to speak love to those you love. Our children, our spouses, those we hold in esteem all need to "hear" love in their very own language. Like the quote at the top of this post, those we love should know their name is safe in our mouth.

God Himself speaks my name deep into my heart. When He calls me, I know it is Him by the love I feel. He shows me through people, through nature, through our exquisitely designed bodies. What remarkable design. So, on this day of love, I am thankful for the man who has shown me truly what love is. He takes time to find out what truly matters to me. He listens to me, encourages me in finding and carrying out my passion. He takes care of chores and jobs he doesn't necessarily like, but knows that matter to me. I am working to "hear" him in the same sorts of ways, that he will know how much I love him too. And for this gift of love, this gift of marriage, I am so humbly grateful.