❤ = love, sort of

Long before the heart emoji existed, many people, including me, drew hearts to express their love. I put hearts at the end of letters and in cards. I included hearts on notes to my parents and friends. I wrote hearts in my school notebooks next to names of boys I liked. While those hearts represented my love at the time, I knew very little of what love was.

Rarely do I hear the words ‘What is love?’ and not hear the song by Haddaway in my head or think about the Night at the Roxbury skit. Type in ‘love’ in Google and you will get 13.16 billion results. Songs, books, movies, news stories, psychological articles, nonprofits, sites that sell love/love-related items, and more. It’s quite a popular topic. Look at the definition of love and you’ll find it is a noun (e.g., a feeling, a person, or a score in tennis), yet it is shown through our actions (i.e., a verb).  

Love, of course, is more than a feeling. People fall in and out of the ‘love feeling’ all the time. When we love others, it doesn’t mean we’ll never get hurt or that we’ll never hurt others. We love our children, but they probably think we hurt them when they are disciplined. I’m guilty of hurting my husband, children, and friends by saying mean things to them. Having “tough love” by not fixing the mistakes our loved ones make is not easy to do either. It really is hard to love at times.

I want to love better. #37 on My 50 List is ‘Study love as described in the Bible.’ Throughout 2018, my studying consisted of morning devotions about love (some but not all). I also read the book Love Like That: 5 Relationship Secrets From Jesus by Les Parrott III. And I’ve read 1 Corinthians 13 in different translations. Yes, I could have studied more, and even though 2018 is over, I plan to continue to learn more about love.

According to The Message, 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 says [bolding is mine]

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

This message seems counter to what we learn in our world today… it’s okay to be impatient with the waitress or the car in front of you or the cashier at the grocery store; every commercial encourages you to be better than others; keep up with the Jones’ of social media; be angry with others whose opinions differ from yours.

Since I was a youth, I heard and read the above Corinthians verses. Reading the words isn’t the same as living them and it wasn’t until about six years ago that I started to really internalize them. I asked God for years to give me patience. Then I read somewhere that God doesn’t GIVE us patience, He helps us through situations so we LEARN patience. I realized that I “coveted” more than I thought (e.g., better hair, more money, less weight, etc.). When I’m tired or stressed, I lash out at others. And I would love to erase the mental list of wrongs done to me. When I truly study the love list, I have much room for improvement.

As a physical reminder about wanting to love better, I chose to get a tattoo (#10 on My 50 List). The tattoo I chose is an infinity symbol with a cross and a heart, located on my wrist so I see it every day. It’s a reminder to me that I want to love continually but I need help in doing so and I get that help through my faith. I’d like to love unconditionally. I’d like to always follow the love instructions in 1 Corinthians 13. Yet I know that I will sometimes (maybe often) fail. And that’s okay as long as I keep seeking help from God to learn a little more about loving others. Even though I know I won’t be able to love perfectly, it’s something I will strive toward beyond My 50 List (and beyond the ❤ emoji).

Why Can’t I Sleep?

There are times when crawling into bed feels so good. The mornings when I wake up refreshed and ready to face the day. Those are good too. It sure would be nice if every night (or at least a majority of them) resulted in feeling completely rested.

Sleep really is a wonderful gift we’ve been given.

What I see many nights...

Our minds and bodies benefit from sleep. Sleep can reduce stress and depression, heal our bodies, and improve our memory. I know when I am tired, it is difficult to focus on reading, writing, and decision making. When our boys were growing up, we kept a consistent bedtime, as much as their busy sports schedules allowed. We usually avoided illness until there were too many short-sleep nights in a row. Even now when the boys are sick at college, I usually ask about how much sleep they are getting. It’s no surprise that it’s not enough to keep them healthy.

I don’t think I’ve ever pulled an all-nighter, but I have stayed up quite late to complete work. And there have been times when I’ve gotten up in the middle of the night because I couldn’t sleep. Sometimes I’d get up just to write something down and go back to bed, falling asleep quickly. Other times I spent an hour or two in the middle of the night reading or completing a task. I never really minded this.

But, for the last few years I’ve had restless, interrupted sleep on a more regular basis. It used to be that most nights I slept like a baby. Now there are fewer of those nights each week. If it’s not my body aching or sweating, it’s my mind hopping from one situation to another. Things I forgot to do, things I need to do, people I love who are hurting or struggling, a problem I need to solve. All these swirl around my mind for hours, not allowing me to fall back into a deep sleep.

Wondering ‘what affects sleep,’ I, of course, Googled it. I was aware of most of the culprits. Stress has affected my sleep a lot in the past. I don’t drink caffeine, snore (much), or have sleep apnea or narcolepsy or restless leg syndrome. Nightmares and night terrors are not an issue for me. Hormones, alcohol, and food may sometimes be offenders or maybe it’s time to change our mattress. I also found this song called Who Needs Sleep? by the Barenaked Ladies. Anyone who has had insomnia can relate to it.

Unfortunately, something else I found was that this type of sleep is normal as people age. The National Sleep Foundation says, “As people age they tend to have a harder time falling asleep and more trouble staying asleep than when they were younger.” “Great” sarcastically just popped into my head. Looks like I’ll keep spending more time sleeping lightly. But how I love my deep REM sleep!

At this point I am not concerned enough to seek medical attention about the number of times I wake up at night, but it’s “nice” to know I’m aging normally. I’ll keep monitoring what I do before bed to see if any causes result in less sleep. And tonight I’m praying for one of those elusive long, deep sleep nights.