I Love You

Although I hadn’t intended for it to be so, during the break I ended up taking a break from my few days of blogging. It’s funny how things like that work out. Right before the break I thought to myself “I think I’ll use this opportunity to catch up or get ahead in my classes. As soon as my head hit the bed on the evening that the break supposedly started (How do you count the weekend as part of the break, when you would normally be out of school at that time?) those thoughts left me and my usual procrastinator mind frame set back in. After that evening our lovely internet service providers (read: Time Warner) left us without internet for four days. After losing four days, I just fell completely out of the swing of blogging that I had just started to develop. In any case, here I am blogging about a quick thought I just had thanks to my little (read: nine-year-old) brother, Isaiah.

I worked on a couple word-finds with Isaiah, which is über entertaining since he’s as competitive as I am at half my age and wants me to fully compete with him and go easy on him at the same time. His bedtime rolled around and so the game is to be continued tomorrow morning before school. Before heading to bed he gave me a big hug and told me goodnight, then said “I love you.” Awww. Sometimes he is so sweet. In any case I told him “I love you too”. The thought struck me that I seldom say “I love you” to anyone. If someone I love tells me they love me, it’s only natural to say “I love you too”, and I mean every word of it, but for some reason it is so hard for me to say “I love you” first.

When I think back on my childhood I remember saying it more then. Over the break my family tackled some unpacking and came across old photos (from the old days when people developed little rolls of film). I came to realize what a different time that was. We also came across some old Mother’s Day cards (the kind you made in grade school). Our horrific spelling and grammar not to mention our honest and straight forward messages were . . . interesting (and somewhat hilarious). My sister Ayana had written one back in kindergarten that read “I love you becaes you love me”.

Having become better spellers and more thoughtful writers since then, we laugh at that little message and maybe even think to ourselves how horrible that sounds. However the notion is an honest one that probably applies to most of us in many of our relationships. The extension of that notion is ‘I love you, because you loved me first”. Could you have loved your parents before they loved you? In every relationship someone has to take the first step. If you’ve had a boyfriend or girlfriend with whom you shared a serious relationship, was this not a factor on your mind – who would say “the L word” first? For me as a Christian 1 John 4:19 comes to mind:

“We loved him because he first loved us.”

There’s nothing wrong with being the recipient of the first “I love you”, but perhaps it’s not so bad to say it first and even more so to actually love the person first. I would encourage you (as well as myself) to try to be the one to take that first step in future relationships.