Words of Love

How many of you remember your first love note? I distinctly remember mine. It was to a girl I had a crush on when I was in the 5th grade. Well, to be honest, I don’t remember the content, I just remember the process of writing. I believe the year was 1978, and I was “in love” for the first time. Thanks to a just released hit love song, I was given the fuel to pen my very first love letter in the 5th grade. I listened to this song a 1000 times before actually writing the note so my heart would be filled with the proper passion. Here was my inspiration:

Some say love it is a river
that drowns the tender reed
Some say love it is a razor
that leaves your soul to bleed

Some say love it is a hunger
an endless aching need
I say love it is a flower
and you it's only seed

It's the heart afraid of breaking
that never learns to dance
It's the dream afraid of waking that never takes the chance
It's the one who won't be taken
who cannot seem to give
and the soul afraid of dying that never learns to live

When the night has been too lonely
and the road has been too long
and you think that love is only
for the lucky and the strong
Just remember in the winter far beneath the bitter snows
lies the seed
that with the sun's love
in the spring
becomes the rose

The Rose, by Bette Midler

There is no telling what I actually wrote (and for everyone’s sake, let’s hope it never resurfaces), but I do remember writing with all of the passion and tenderness a 5th grade boy could muster. At the time, I thought I was writing the most important words of my life. Looking back, well it was probably the cheesiest thing I have ever written in my life! But for this 5th grade boy, they were words of life as I tried to express to someone for the first time that I liked them.

Thinking back on this process of writing my first love note, I find many similarities to what I think the journaling process is all about. Writing to record life is fine, but I don’t sense there is any formation of our spirit in that type of writing. To me it is a way to track time, and impute some meaning into our daily experiences by metaphorically or physically passing our experiences on to others in the form of written words.

When I think of the process of journaling as a Christian practice, the context is all about love. It is not much different than trying to write a love note to someone whom you like! The songs that fill our hearts with inspiration are the very words of God himself. He has been revealing his love for us generation after generation. As we read the Scriptures, we find his words fueling us with his compassion and love. Our words, by comparison, are just attempts to love him back. And this process of loving God back, no matter how trite our words of love for him might seem by comparison, is an essential act of worship. God no doubt receives and cherishes every word we can come up with to love him back.

What if Song of Songs was the primary text for us to learn to journal? What if this vivid description of romantic love in the Scripture is to teach us to pray like we are in love – with passion and anticipation of connection with God? At first pass, that concept makes me blush. Can I really think of God as my “lover?” Yes, I can. And when the context for my journaling becomes words to express my love to him, there is much in my heart to be transformed. I guess I am learning that if God really loves me, then I can start anywhere in my journaling, even if I don’t particularly want to love him back at the moment. The process of talking to my “lover” usually woos my heart back to him even if it has wandered away. Love is like a flower, and God its only seed. When we speak to our lover, our hearts are usually transformed. Therefore, we can pray song of song style:

Song 1:2 Kiss me—full on the mouth!
Yes! For your love is better than wine,
3 headier than your aromatic oils.
The syllables of your name murmur like a meadow brook.
No wonder everyone loves to say your name!

Pray with me that we would be a community that would learn to pray like we are in love. May our words shine as we find ways to love God back.