A new kind of love

Growing up I always heard of different kinds of love, but I never really understood what they were. In fact, I'm only beginning now to see the differences and I've noticed it most of all since having Ivan. When brought into the world, ideally we experience our parent's love. I did. I always knew that no matter what, my parents loved me and still do, even if they don't agree with everything I think or do. I came to know sibling love and friend's love. Then I encountered romantic love. Each one expressed itself differently and entails a totally different relationship. And although Brian is my marriage partner and nothing can compare to that love, I have been flabergasted by the dimensions of parental love.


There is something about loving my own child that is mystical, unfathomable, unending. I don't know why that is, if it's that he's so small and hugable, but at times I feel like I could hug him all day long! He's vulnerable, so there's this fierce desire to protect him and guide him through dangers. He's a mix of us and a total miracle and this amazing little being growing, learning, becoming in every moment. I can't describe the love I feel for him. It's not like anything I've ever known. I have a much better grasp of all the other loves. They are all mysteries, they are all a gift, they are all meaningful and life-giving and enriching, but this one is far more mysterious, unsearcheable and beyond telling. It seems with the other loves, even towards my husband, I have to consciously place his needs before mine. Self-sacrificing is exactly that, a sacrifice. It's rewarding, necessary and fulfilling, but purposeful. Sacrificing for Ivan or for the next baby do not seem so much like sacrifices, but like privileges. It's more automatic, easier, even expected and in that there is a beauty unlike any other.

Maybe it has to do with choice. I chose to love Brian the day I agreed in my heart to give my life's love to him. I chose to love him above all others the day we married and everyday since (some days better than others). With parents and siblings there is some degree of automatic love, but especially as an adult, I again must choose to love them. I choose to continue relationship with them and to do so in love. I choose to remember growing up with them in the light of love. But with my own children, the choice I made was to have them. Once that occured, it's like a wild, untamable, unsearchable force was birthed along with them. This love is uncontrollable. It has a mind of it's own. In some ways, I have to choose to love my children in the way I care for them, the way I speak to them and treat them, but underguirding these decisions is a wild love power that is way beyond me.

Of course, the ultimate is the highest, most perfect love of the Lover, who invented, encompasses, originates and propels all these loves at the same time. He takes every attribute (parent, lover, designer, sibling, friend...) to describe His love for us and those only start to scratch the surface. If I can't even grasp the love I have for Ivan and #2, I can not possibly hope to fully understand on this side of heaven that exponentially impossible love from above, the real love unknown, the love unending, the love I feel for Ivan and Brian, for my friends and family, for the hurting and troubled, times infinity.