Always In Love: An Addict’s Story
My friend Amy and I met for Indonesian lunch last month. When she went to her car to get milk for her new son, I scooped him up.
The boy is a parental dream; he settled instantly into my arms. Then he began to smile at me.
I knew then and there I was in love.
It was unreal. I was Jacob imprinting on Renesmee. (From the Book of Twilight, 4 Jacob 1:897,592.)
The sticky plastic menu in front of me disappeared; the waitstaff and other diners faded. I didn’t move — neither did time. I was transfixed.
The Addiction
I have been in love. I have also been infatuated, or in need, and called that love, but I’m talking about real, sacrificial love. I’ve been lucky enough to have that.
Those few experiences of real love changed me. They broke me, and re-whole’d me. The effects have lasted forever and regrooved my neurological patterns.
And, if you’re hurting like me, you search a lifetime for that love. Sometimes, like holding an adorable baby, you can replicate the feeling for a moment.
Then you want it forever. You’re addicted, sure as sugar or cocaine. Biochemically, it’s the same.
I sought this feeling in men. In the party. In fame-dreams. Everywhere I looked for that high, I fell. Click to tweet!
Over and over again, I picked myself off the concrete, held together by band-aids.
It’s a form of self-immolation, I tell you.
The secular world tried their best. Coaches and friends urged me to “love myself”.
It didn’t work.
It will never work to tell someone who’s never known unwavering, encompassing love to just love herself.
It took three decades for me to find the one thing that does work. You know I love a good love story: this one gets better.
Addict for Life
God did not cure me of love.
That “addiction” is not meant to be cured. It was given to us by the original love addict — Love itself. It’s our right, and our command.
“My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.”
— John 15:12 NIV
It’s just meant to be channeled correctly.
“And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” There is no other commandment greater than these.
— Mark 12:30–31 NKJV
It’s hard to do this perfectly. Every day, every moment, I remind myself to look up first. I don’t always remember. I’m often distracted by old habits and values. But now, when I fall, there are hands to catch me, sisters to minister to me, and a web keeping me from splattering.
These days when I fall, I’m set back on my feet quickly.
I’ve searched a lifetime for this kind of love. Now, I finally know where to look. Click to tweet!
Originally published at www.fiftytwofaces.com on June 7, 2016.
