Love Songs & Unselfish Love

Love is in many ways fine:
Like a nickel, like a dime.
But love is more valuable to me
Than one, two, or even three…

And so begins one of the most *ahem* “memorable” poems I’ve ever written. (I won’t make you suffer through the rest of it.) Judging by my handwriting at the time, I’m guessing I was around nine or ten years old when I penned that masterpiece. Back in the day, apparently, those two silver coins represented huge value for me, because I compared them to the one thing everyone on the planet desires: LOVE.

It should come as no surprise that my nickel and dime view of love wouldn’t last forever. As I entered the teen years, my experience of love shifted from coins in my pocket to “teardrops on my guitar.” (Well, make that my pillow. Taylor Swift, I am not.)

All the Feels

In high school, hormones had me convinced that love was a feeling (or more than a feeling)—one I couldn’t fight anymore. When “the feels” eventually subsided or my heart was broken, that all-consuming “love” evaporated into thin air. And then, I was all out of love, and so lost without ____________ (fill in the blank). Emotion took me over—tied up with sorrow; lost in my soul. And time? It kept flowing. Like a river.

As I matured, I struggled to wrap my mind around that crazy little thing called “love.” It’s such an ambiguous term, we shouldn’t be shocked that people go looking for love in all the wrong places. For with this singular word love, I express my passion for penguins, “The Princess Bride,” dark chocolate, football, and family.

If I were to explain the power of love according to hit singles on the radio, it might sound a little bit like this… Click here to continue reading my devotional at “Rooted at the Throne” hosted by Rachael Carman.