I have never known love.
Sitting in a tent where babies are crying, and reaching for piping hot tea. Where moms are tired of chasing their tooters and wanting to just be able to relax and be with friends. To unwind and not be serving their husbands, guests, families for one.hot.minute.
And somehow our conversation turns to love. About what it means to have love in marriage. There are so many ways to feel loved- through respect, through affection, through intimacy, through words, through being served or provided for. We are untangling what love is- what it means to have love in your marriage.
Because for so many of my friends, so many of these women, marriage is void of love. It is not necessary and not even expected. They marry because that is what is expected - your parents arrange it and you marry for children to enter into a business relationship with your partner- providing children, food, home for him. And he provides home, money, safety and protection for you.
The banter goes back and forth and we laugh and tease about what this means for each woman. And then one woman cracks her heart wide open.
In a slight lull, she says honestly and vulnerably - I have never been loved. Not my first husband, not my second. I was not loved by my Father. I was discarded and forced into both marriages, because my Father did not want me. I was not loved by my mother, she was overwhelmed and hated how much work her kids gave her, how much I exhausted her.
For a minute it feels like the air has been sucked out of the room. I look around into the eyes of her friends, her relatives, the women who lived next to her in Syria and live next to her now. They avert eye contact and keep silent. I stumble for words. I can't string together anything that would make sense.
I look her deep into the eyes. I tell her how hard that must have been, and how I am so sorry she feels that way. I ask her - you mean you never felt loved by your mother, even your mother.
Her soft eyes, her bubbly personality, her joking... she just does not seem like the bitter woman who has never felt loved by the most significant people in her life.
But she bravely acknowledges that she has never felt love from these people. She has felt ugly, despised, in the way, an obligation to care for.
Her friends agree with her, and tell me that her mother was an orphan, so she just did not know how to love. I let that be their excuse, but let my heart feel the weight of living a life that feels completely unloved. not chosen.
At the end of our visit we pray for this woman to feel the Love of God, the love that changes everything. She gently received it , but did not seem as emotional as I was feeling, as my friend was feeling...
It was the next time we saw her that she was beaming. She could barely wait until we sat down to begin to tell us that she has never had a week like the one she had just had. She kept saying " I have never felt love like that. First it was from God, and then even my husband. " She went on to tell story after story of ways God had provided for her, of moments she had felt His love that week.
Oh to know Love....
And somehow our conversation turns to love. About what it means to have love in marriage. There are so many ways to feel loved- through respect, through affection, through intimacy, through words, through being served or provided for. We are untangling what love is- what it means to have love in your marriage.
Because for so many of my friends, so many of these women, marriage is void of love. It is not necessary and not even expected. They marry because that is what is expected - your parents arrange it and you marry for children to enter into a business relationship with your partner- providing children, food, home for him. And he provides home, money, safety and protection for you.
The banter goes back and forth and we laugh and tease about what this means for each woman. And then one woman cracks her heart wide open.
In a slight lull, she says honestly and vulnerably - I have never been loved. Not my first husband, not my second. I was not loved by my Father. I was discarded and forced into both marriages, because my Father did not want me. I was not loved by my mother, she was overwhelmed and hated how much work her kids gave her, how much I exhausted her.
For a minute it feels like the air has been sucked out of the room. I look around into the eyes of her friends, her relatives, the women who lived next to her in Syria and live next to her now. They avert eye contact and keep silent. I stumble for words. I can't string together anything that would make sense.
I look her deep into the eyes. I tell her how hard that must have been, and how I am so sorry she feels that way. I ask her - you mean you never felt loved by your mother, even your mother.
Her soft eyes, her bubbly personality, her joking... she just does not seem like the bitter woman who has never felt loved by the most significant people in her life.
But she bravely acknowledges that she has never felt love from these people. She has felt ugly, despised, in the way, an obligation to care for.
Her friends agree with her, and tell me that her mother was an orphan, so she just did not know how to love. I let that be their excuse, but let my heart feel the weight of living a life that feels completely unloved. not chosen.
At the end of our visit we pray for this woman to feel the Love of God, the love that changes everything. She gently received it , but did not seem as emotional as I was feeling, as my friend was feeling...
It was the next time we saw her that she was beaming. She could barely wait until we sat down to begin to tell us that she has never had a week like the one she had just had. She kept saying " I have never felt love like that. First it was from God, and then even my husband. " She went on to tell story after story of ways God had provided for her, of moments she had felt His love that week.
Oh to know Love....
Comments
Post a Comment