I have said them an uncountable number of times. I have screamed them through tears. I have giggled them in laughter. I have mumbled them in silence. I have said them reluctantly in response to. I have seen others use them too quickly and still others never use them at all. I have used them in a completely serious manner and I have used them on every person I come across at the bar when I've had one too many. I, along with millions of other people in this world whether in English or Spanish or French or whatever, have spoken those three (so short and simple but which hold huge meaning) words.... I love you!
The first time I said these words to anyone other than family members and very close friends was when I was 15 years old. I said those three words to the same person for five years. Sometimes I said it out of habit but most always I said it with feeling. He said it too. For five years. He said it right back or either he said first. After those five years I wondered if love was really in existence anymore. Was there really a such thing as true love, a such thing as being in love? Because you couldn't say you loved someone but hurt them over and over again. You couldn't go to sleep every night and wake up every morning saying "I love you" to someone when you weren't even completely sure what girl you were with the night before. You can't watch a girl lose her confidence and security at the fault of your wrong doings but still profess to be in love with her. Did love really exist? How could it? And if it did, why would anyone love me? Obviously I wasn't enough for someone for five years, when would I ever be enough for someone?
Today, standing in Target with my best friend Grace talking to another friend of mine Leslie, it clicked to me that love does exist. There is such a thing as true love. The idea of being in love isn't a scam. It's real. It's all real.
Let me back up for a minute. Everyone knows I have to put this in baseball retrospect. Watch any baseball game... You will see a hitter swing as hard as he can and miss but every now and then, you will see a hitter swing the bat with all of his might and the ball will sail through the sky and over the fence. If you're lucky, that home-run may win a ball game or maybe it will just draw the team a little closer to a win. I have heard lots of my guy friends who play baseball say there is no particular pitch that they see coming and know it is a home-run, most of the time they just swing and pray.
Now, in the case that you have not picked up on this analogy yet. For five years, I was swinging and missing. There were occasions when I may get runners on base and maybe even hit a couple out but I never touched home for the win. I was always just a few home-runs shy of it. I have never known what kind of pitches God was going to throw at me, I would mostly just swing and pray but almost two years ago now, he threw me a pitch. The pitch was a wild one, maybe even a curve ball at the time but I clinched the bat as hard as I could, I forgot about all the other times when I had gone up to the plate but still lost the game, I swung with everything I had left in me, and I prayed. I dropped the bat, looked up and realized that somehow I had hit a home-run that had finally won the game.
Today standing in Target, I said to Grace and Leslie,"I have never seen anyone love someone the way Josh loves me." Through all of the hard and the bad times, he just stands right with me, he smiles and listens and loves with all he has. He doesn't complain when I get mad. He doesn't pick out my flaws, to him I have none. He doesn't even know that other girls exist. I am the girl he loves. I am the one he is in love with. I am the one he wakes up every morning to and falls asleep every night to saying "I love you" and he says it with complete confidence. 19 months ago I shrugged off all the other at-bats that resulted in callused hands and losses and I swung at a pitch that gave me one of the greatest wins of my life this far. He is the most genuine and kind-hearted guy I know and when he says those three words to me, I know what they mean.
"And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love? But the greatest of these is love" 1 Corinthians 13:13
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