Love You

I sent some thoughtful words & prayers to a friend this morning before she went into surgery (not to worry, she’s fine. She’s just vain). We went back and forth for a while and I closed with ‘Love you’ and thought, wow that seems impersonal. So, I deleted it and added the word ‘I’ to my closing and it seemed so much more personal to tell her that I loved her.

It got me thinking about the word ‘love’, the term “I love…” and how overused and abused it has become. I then thought of something my Dad wrote a few years ago. (Nick, my Dad, not to be confused with Daddy or New Dad) So I guess today we have a guest blogger of sorts. Words of wisdom from my Dad, Nicholas Mitchell.

Love You Too

How many times have we heard those words?

They are usually a response to you telling someone

“I love you”.

Did that person ever call you first and say “I love you”?

It saddens me that love can be such a one-way street and that

so may people take it for granted but are not willing to

commit themselves to an honest friendship.

“love you too” is a way of avoiding the truth in a relationship.

We throw away words so easily because we don’t want to face

the truth of our feelings and just say what we want the

recipient to hear. What he or she wants to hear.

“I love you too”. What a lie.

My life has been filled with so many “love you too’s”

God never says I love you too.

He says I love you!

We all need to practice this principle in our lives.

We have to follow His example and tell our friends

And neighbors “I love you”

Maybe they will start believing this and stop responding with

“I love you too”

and start saying “I love you”! Before you do!

The first time I said those three little words to my husband, his response was less than what I had hoped for. If I remember correctly, he took a deep breath and said “thank you”. That’s right, people, he THANKED me for my love. At the time, I was so heartbroken, but I get it now. Nobody wants an obligatory “I love you too” response. It would probably feel similar to getting the forced “I’m sorry” from the bully on the playground. Saying “I love you too” is definitely not always the right thing to do.

I feel like in today’s society, the word love is just thrown around so carelessly that it is sometimes reduced to “Oh my gosh, I LOVE those chicken nuggets!” And then we tell our kids “Love you!” on the way out the door. I’m totally guilty of it—as a matter of fact, I just cooked some Cracklin’ Chicken from Nom Nom Paleo and we all LOVED it!

So for today, I’m going to make my loves count and try to say it first!

Funny side note: when I messaged Dad to ask him for this writing, he closed his response with “love you”.