My daughter sat at the kitchen table finishing up her dinner. I was sitting on the couch nursing our youngest. My daughter, Olive, who is three years old, looked over my way and said in the sweetest, high-pitched, Fancy Nancy voice,
Mom, when I’m done eating, I’m gonna snuggle with you and hug you and put all of my love in your heart.”
My heart filled up immediately. It was as if her just saying those words transferred her love to my heart and filled it up completely. The bonus was her running up to me just a few minutes later to smother me with kisses and hugs.
This got me thinking about the way love is transferred.
God is love. If God is in our hearts, if we know God, then love is in our hearts. If we know true love, then we can truly love others. When we choose to love others we are transferring God’s love from our hearts to lavish on them so that they can experience God’s love. There is power in sharing God’s great love.
I honestly would not know how to truly love my children and my husband, or anyone else, if I did not know God. Because He is love.
There is a powerful imagery in the way my daughter said she is going to put her love in my heart. What a brave and bold action. If we know God, we should be just as willing to be giving of our love! The power of this kind of love transforms people!
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.” 1 John 4:7-12
