Portrait of My Love

A Portrait of My Love

There could never be, a portrait of my love.

For nobody could paint a dream.

You will never see a portrait of my love

For miracles are never seen.

Anyone who sees her, soon forgets the Mona Lisa

It would take I know, a Michaelangelo

And he would need the glow of dawn that paints the sky above

To try and paint a portrait of my love.

This song was, in many respects, our wedding song.  James played the guitar while a family friend sang it.  The song is one that touched my soul from the first time that I heard it.   I love both the words and I love the beautiful music that accompanies it.  When my husband played this song for me at our wedding (reception), I felt honored to be married to such a wonderful man.

The words of this song cause me to think about our constant efforts to define "love".  We try to put it into the context of gifts, acts of kindness or love, intimacy, or written words on the inside of cards and letters.  But none of these are sufficient to describe, or paint, what "love" actually is or looks like. 

That seems to be such an eternal question, asked by all human beings, "Do you love me?" followed by, "How do I know?"  I have asked that question repeatedly of my husband, mother and father.  I have wondered how my Father in Heaven loves me, do my children love me and how can I know?

I have spent many years trying to find the answer to this question, an answer that would be strong enough to satisfy what feels like a deep quest at times.  How do you know someone loves you?

For me, the answer lies in two simple factors.  How they view you and how they treat you.  My husband has taught me a great deal about this level of love.  His actions and words demonstrate this eternal love for me.  He views me, not as I am, but as I can become.  This elevated level of love causes him to look past my human weaknesses and focus on the daughter of God that I am and all of the potential that I have.  He chooses to uplift me to that potential.  His words and his actions uplift me, but more so, he mirrors back to me the way that I should view myself.  I have been hard on myself throughout my life, but his love has demonstrated that I am a worthwhile daughter of God who is loved simply and only for that reason. 

This reverberates back to how he treats me.  My husband treats me as a daughter of God, as a mother of not only his children, but as a mother of children of God.  He treats me in a manner that teaches me to respect myself and to love myself for my own divine nature.  A simple and yet profound action on my husband’s part was to teach all three of our sons to always let ladies enter the doorway first.  To this day, all of my sons, step to the side and allow me to pass into the house first.  In this instance, mere words may not have been strong enough to convey to our children the importance of the action.  My children witnessed him acting in this way and they followed his example.  My husband has always demonstrated his love for me by being a gentleman - even when no one was looking. 

Through all of this, I can say that I am loved.  I am loved simply because I am a daughter of God.  I am loved simply because I am his wife.  I am loved simply because I am their mother.  Yes, I am loved.

…and I love them right back.   

That is eternal love. That is the portrait of my love.