Love and the Mountain Madness

From the infamous voice of Stephen Stills this post begins...

"Well there's a rose in the fisted glove And eagle flies with the dove And if you can't be with the one you love honey Love the one you're with"

The past three weekends I've been hanging out with friends, high schoolers, and ski bums but my heart was still a little sad because I haven't seen Lee in a couple months.

For my first ski weekend my bff Molly and I were listening to the radio and heard "Love the One Your With". I automatically turned that into the theme song for my weekend trips.

While sitting on a ski lift I had LOTS of time to think and contemplate life. On one trip up, that song was in my head and it really opened my eyes to the fact that I've been really selfish with my love. My "feelings" get in the way of love expressed. I'm tired or I just don't really like you or know you and so I don't care about how I act. This song changed my attitude process. Although most of the lyrics are weird and don't pertain to anything, the main line says it all, if I can't be with my friend Molly then why not love the other people I'm around. If I can't be with my mom then why not still love my co-workers. Why wait to give my love to Lee when I can give it to some high schooler and my love tank will be refilled before I reunite with Lee. This song may be some crazy 70s love song but it speaks truth!

So through out your day, don't wait for those few people that you truly love to show up, give out some hugs, smiles, and compliments to those people you are stuck with!

Distance and the Mountain Madness

Along those lines of being with the one you love whoever said "Absence makes thy heart grow fonder" was never in a long distance relationship for over a week. With all those ski lift rides I had enough time to contemplate those words. Many years ago my youth pastor was talking about relationships and at that time I could care less about things like boyfriends but some of his words stuck with me. When talking about the above quote he added on "absence makes the heart wonder" and I've been pondering both lines and thinking about which is truer. This past weekend I've decided that the second is the most accurate. While riding the ski lift I was thinking about Lee and how I was kind of "forgetting" things about him since I haven't seen him in so long. I've forgotten his smell, his facial hair, his laugh. Then I was thinking about the same scenario with God and how I've been "forgetting" things about Him. It's so much harder to love someone I've never had physical contact with, just descriptions from the Bible and seeing the effects of other people's relationships with Him. Once I've authentically connected with my Lord, the relationship took a turn and I could think of Him as a person I see and talk with everyday. But once I allowed sin to start taking over my heart and my spiritual disciplines started to go by the wayside, it was like we separated. God went to Africa and left me in Kansas alone. I start to forget about His characteristics that made me fall in love with Him in the first place and start to think about only myself and how I can survive alone. I've forgotten about how much He loves me with an intimate, never-ending love. How He provides everyday for me physically and emotionally. How He blesses me even when I forget about Him. Just as I forget about Lee some days, going the whole day without speaking to Him, I loose connection with God. My heart wonders to other things like TV, facebook, being bitter and pessimistic, dwelling on the past, and making stupid decisions. Distance, SIN, makes the heart wonder and makes you forget about the love that really matters! This is my goal, to draw closer to my Creator so that when Lee and I finally see each other my priorities are in line and I can love him with a spiritual love and not a self-pleasing lust (because love is not self-pleasing).