Love Notes and a House of Mirrors

  “Let’s go in—it’ll be fun!” my husband said enthusiastically. Totally forgetting about the time he (along with our beagle) almost turned the family walk into a rescue mission, I grabbed the back of his shirt and we entered the house of mirrors.  It was fun in the beginning, looking at endless choices of decorative arched hallways in every direction. We bumped into a few mirrored walls and laughed as we kept turning around, trying different paths. But the fun wore off in five minutes and I began to get claustrophobic. The only thing saving me was holding onto my husband’s shirttail and trusting him to get us out.  Him…and the little kid we started following. We’d see this curly blond head flash past one mirrored panel and then pop out from behind another. He was quick, but once we realized he was our only chance of exiting this hell hole, we matched our pace to his.  Jeff called to the boy, “We’re following you!” which I told him wasn’t appropriate to say. We were at a frantic jog when Jeff shouted, “We lost him! Oh there he is!” As we stumbled out of the exit, the kid was looking back to make sure we were still following, which I thought was really nice of him.
     Love is sometimes like that house of mirrors. It can be difficult to discern what is real vs. what’s an illusion. When I hear a true love story, I’ll often confirm the heart of it by declaring “That right there’s love!” For instance, my friend told how her new husband talked her into going on a ski trip for their honeymoon. She didn’t know how to ski but she was in love so they went to the big serious slopes in Colorado. She nervously rode the lift to the top of the mountain and as they were about to dismount, her beloved shouted “Pole! Pole!”  She looked down and realized she’d dug her ski pole into the snow between his skis. Thankfully that got corrected and away they went.  As they barreled down the steep death slope, her beloved yelled “Pizza!  Pizza!” and laughing little kids whizzed past, holding their bent arms in the air like they were serving pizza. My friend went to ski school the next day and for the rest of the honeymoon, while her husband skied the black diamond Devil’s Crotch, she was perfectly happy staying on Frosty’s Freeway. “That right there’s love!”
     Another friend relayed how love made her go on a hunting trip with her husband. They weren’t allowed to shower for a week prior, and once they got their camouflage on and entered the woods, her husband sprayed deer urine on her boots and told her to walk around.  “That right there’s love.”
     Examples of true love are all around us. We know selfless people who take care of sick loved ones.  I also heard of a woman whose husband spontaneously bought her goats on their vacation, and hauled them across three states inside their minivan. And there’s a local grandmother who declared she was at a point in her life where she was done raising a garden and done raising animals…yet when her granddaughter came to live with her, they canned more garden vegetables than she had in 10 years. Nanna even used her hard earned money from selling homemade baskets to buy Neigh Nibblers for the three miniature donkeys they got last fall! “That right there’s love!”
     May we all have someone who talks us into fun adventures and whose shirt tail we can grab when we need help finding our way. And if we ever feel stuck in a metaphorical house of mirrors, may we find clarity and guidance in the greatest love story ever: Jesus said “I am the way, the truth, and the life…” (John 14:6)  That right there’s love!  Happy Valentine’s Day everyone.

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