As you may know, the premise of this blog is that love is not so much an emotion we experience as depicted in the movies or books, a feeling that carries us away on clouds surrounded by rainbows and unicorns, but that love is a choice we get to make each and every day from one moment to the next. That’s why, when I started this project and my oldest teen wondered whether I could possibly find 365 reasons I love her and her sister, I knew those reasons would never be in doubt for me. While there are days I cannot put words together the way I would like or when my thoughts won’t form clearly, allowing me to articulate and express them here, the reasons I love these two remarkable young women is never in question.
Because I choose to love them.
And, when you choose to love someone, reasons are not always as important as the act of loving that person. Honestly, sometimes I love them just because. For me, parenting and choosing to love my teenagers is a smaller scale of the way God takes care of me as my Heavenly Father and the way He loves me with an abiding, abounding, no-matter-what kind of love. I can’t do anything to make Him love me more nor can I do anything to make Him love me less. I cannot lose His love, no matter what ridiculous thing I may do on any given day.
Because I am loved in this kind of way, I have learned how to love others with this same abounding and no-matter-what kind of love. That is how I have also loved my husband. Marriage and parenthood provide us the opportunities to love others in ways we never realized we were truly capable of doing. The reasons I love my girls are based more on things that bring me joy, cause me to smile or to laugh, fill my heart with an overflowing and deep sense of gratitude. Because truly, I love them just because.
I love them because they are here.
I love them because they are who they are.
I love them because they are mine to love.
I love them because they are generous and kind.
I love them because we laugh together and that is one of my favorite things every day.
I love them because they are fantastic people with whom to share life.
I love them because I get to.
I love them because I am loved by them.
I love them because they are reflections and reminders of God and the beauty He has placed in this world.
I have long been a fan of Broadway and musical theater. One of my favorite shows is Les Miserables, the first musical I ever saw when I was a young teenager, maybe 13 or 14 (I might have been even younger). Not only have I read the book at least three times, I have seen the show in Boston, in New York, in London, and on DVD. While there are many wonderful moments in this story of redemption, the moment I have held dear from those first few times I saw the show performed are the words sung by the character Jean Valjean: To love another person is to see the face of God.
For me, this line truly is an example of life imitating art, maybe because when Victor Hugo wrote the line, his art initiated life as he interpreted it and maybe even experienced it. Whether or not that is true for Hugo, it is true for me. There is for me an honesty and simplicity in these words that I have always deeply appreciated. When I got married, and when we eventually chose to have our girls, those words took on a whole new level of truth for me.
Indeed, these two remarkable young women are my daily reminders of God’s love, grace, and mercy and too love them is indeed to see the face of God in this world.