By Kenneth Stepp
Love is risky. You put it all on the line. Everything in you and outside of you. It isn’t easy and many times it’s ill advised. Your friends, family and even bystanders may offer a warning. Do you listen?
I was listening to a CD in my truck today, Trace Adkins. He has a song, I Learned How to Love From You. It reminded me of my story. Loving me is so risky. I had been married twice, once for 5 years and once for 24.
I have some good points but the bad may outweigh the good. I’m a flirt and I tell anyone remotely interested in me that I’m a train wreck. I was once wealthy so understand money but have very little and don’t care much about it. There are months when I can barely take care of myself.
She had been one of my readers for over two years. Although we never spoke, we liked, loved, and commented on one another’s posts online. I have to admit if a person can want someone they never spoke with or met, I did. She was beautiful and seemed sweet.
One day I was more alone than most days. I decided I would send her a message. In that message I told her the only lie I’d ever tell her. I told her I was going to be in her town and would like to have lunch with her. I wasn’t going to her town unless I could see her. I admitted the lie later that day.
She said come on and away I went. Hopeful and needing something positive in my life. That lunch lasted over six hours. We were smitten. She told me she loved me that day. In most cases that was a read flag. But we were both empaths and I felt her very deeply.
Before I left I sat her down to talk with her. You don’t love me, you love the writer inside of me. He’s almost perfect. The rest of me is a train wreck. She just smiled the prettiest smile I have ever seen and said, “we’ll see”. If you knew her you can picture her saying it just like me.
In the song Trace Adkins sings it says:
You love like there never was a risk
Shared your heart with every tender kiss
Now I know how much I have to give
Cause I learned how to love from you
This song describes how she loved me. And what it did to me just spending the short period of time I did with her. She didn’t care about the wreckage in my life. She just wanted me in her life the way I was. The risks were there and I’m sure there were a few naysayers. But she loved me in the most pure way I have ever been loved.
The lines near the end of this song spoke to me:
If I start to fall again
I’ll close my eyes and not resist
Without fear I’ll just let go
Cause my heart knows
That I learned how to trust
In the power of a touch
I learned how to love from you
If I ever do love again I will love with the kind of love I learned from her. I will never be able to tell her on this side of Heaven how much our love changed my life. How the purity of her love taught me to love properly and the acceptance she showed will be a huge part of my life till I see her again.
Love, if it is real, is a life sentence. Even though I did have to let her go, I will love her till I see her again. I still have conversations with her when I’m driving. I thank her for what she’s done in my life. I do believe I’ll see her again. And that conversation will be amazing….
This is a link to the song. Close your eyes and think about the words.
