The Best Love Song Ever

I was just running which means I was also listening to Third Day which means that I pretty much felt like Jesus was my running partner and if that is true He probably wished I would pull the lead out and pick up the pace a little bit.  (By the way, that sentence was entirely too long.)  Anyway, running, leads to Third Day music which leads to praying which leads to too many thoughts in my head, which leads me to run right through the door and sit at my desk sweating all over my computer.  And here she goes again with the Jesus and the Third Day. 

I was listening to a song called Love Song which I will link to at the bottom of this grammatical mess.   I am new to the parenting a teenager adventure, but I am keenly aware that boy-girl relationships are on the horizon, if not with my own children, then with my friends’ children or my children’s friends.   I am hearing stories of heartache among young people.  Honestly, I’m also hearing stories of heartache in marriages a lot these days, too.  Lots of heartache.  Lots of expectations of each other.  Lots of disappointment.  As I listened to this song, I was thinking of being a young teenage girl and even a twenty-something girl.  I was thinking of how we all bought into the knight in shining armor business. Or, as in my own personal case, we bought into the Kevin Bacon in a white t-shirt and jeans saving me from an oncoming train and then throwing together a high school dance business.  I was thinking how this isn’t fair to the boys and it isn’t fair to the girls or to the wives or to the husbands, for that matter.  I was thinking how our expectations of love and relationships can be all messed up from very early on in our lives.  Is it our culture?  Is it our hormones?  Is it our self-esteem?  Is it all of it?  Do I have the answer?  Absolutely, positively, no.  But, I do have this song and I do have this blog.  And I am not preaching here, I’m just thinking and writing and posting. 

I wish I could tell every teenager to listen to this song and to really hear it.  And I know that even if I really heard it when I was younger, I don’t know how much it would’ve changed me.  I just know that young girls can expect so much out of young boys.  I know that when boys don’t behave in the ways girls expect them to, then girls can think that it is a reflection of their own worth.  In our day, we wanted them to call and say all the right things.  In this age, they want them to text and say all the right things.  Honestly, if I’m judging by what I notice in the texts that I read on my son’s phone, teen boys in a text are about as wordy as teen boys on the phone.  You are not going to get much out of them except for K (okay), NM(not much, which is the answer to “Wazup?”) and IDK (I don’t know).  Riveting and romantic, right?  I’m not slamming boys here.  I happen to like them a lot since I bore three of them.  And I’m not trying to be negative about young girls either.  I happen to have been one.  I also know that boys can have expectations of girls, too and they can be hurt as well. 

I also know that we grown-ups can have expectations of our spouses.  We want them to listen and nod in all the right places, to say the right thing, to be a perfect soul mate who knows our every feeling, who appreciates our every task and says so and who can put the dishes in the dishwasher and not right next to the dishwasher.  When they fall short of our tall order, we often are angry with them and then wonder about our own worth.  Are we not attractive enough?  Are we not interesting enough?  Are we not smart enough?  Are we not capable of knowing a perfect love?  Sometimes we grown women and men, even when in healthy, committed marriages, can fall to looking to our wives or husbands to show a hero’s love.  Many men and women come pretty close, but we all know that there is no perfect boyfriend or husband.  There is no perfect wife or girlfriend.  There is only One whose love is a truly, perfect commitment and truly heroic.  Today, as I ran, I prayed that I and every girlfriend, boyfriend, woman, man, wife and husband, could rest in that promise, could hear that love song, and could know that relationship.  Here are the lyrics and the link at the bottom. 

I've heard it said that a man would climb a mountain
Just to be with the one he loves

How many times has he broken that promise?

It has never been done.

I never climbed the highest mountain, but I walked the hill of Calvary.

Just to be with you, I would do anything.

There’s no price I would not pay.

Just to be with you, I would give everything.

I would give my life away.

I’ve heard it said that a man would swim the ocean, just to be with the one he loves.

All of those dreams are an empty emotion.  It can never be done.

I never swam the deepest ocean, but I walked upon the raging sea.

Just to be with you, I would do anything.

There’s no price I would not pay

Just to be with you I would give everything

I would give my life away.

And I know that you don’t understand the fullness of my love,

How I died upon the cross for your sins.

And I know that you don’t realize how much that I gave you,

And I promise I would do it all again.

Just to be with you, I’ve done everything,

There’s no price I did not pay.

Just to be with you, I gave everything,

Yes, I gave my life away.

Just to be with you.

*Love Song by Third Day*

Here