The act of “love”

We were limited on words. How were we to share “love” to children who had yet to experience this word we so often throw around? It’s easy to say love, it’s harder to act “love” and mean it.

She was broken, she was robbed of her childhood and innocence, time and time again. Unprotected and abused by her own. I remember the first time I met her, she had a bright smile but an empty stare. She craved attention, yearned for love. She was a child trapped in a young woman’s body. There were days when she pushed and pushed, so hard and so much that she grew unlikeable. Unlovable. The hostile environment she created on the outside was but a glimpse of what she felt on the inside. Though she laughed often, her laugh was one of pain. The stench of her body was a means of protection from predators. Yet at the end of the day all this child wanted was to know that she was loved. To feel that she was loved. To say she needed to be validated as a human being is an understatement.

I remember the day she cried and cried and yelled for us. Because she lacked the skills to care for her own body she had developed fungus that was eating away at her feet, an open wound that smelled rotten. I remember walking in, selfishly thinking to myself, what am I to do in this moment? How can I come near her after she has pushed me away, said hateful things and even mocked me today? In the midst of that moment I heard a gentle voice that reminded me how dirty I once was, how unclean I still am and yet how greatly I am loved. Loved beyond understanding by the Most High, by my Creator. In that moment I visualized Jesus being, King of Kings, kneeling down at His disciples’ feet, washing away and cleansing their filth.

I held her hand and knelt down with utter shame, how could I think of myself above or better than? How could I have forgotten how dirty I had once been and yet how Jesus knelt down and washed my feet? I turned on the faucet and cleansed her feet. It was one of the first times she seemed secure in our relationship. That night I couldn’t sleep thinking about how little I too had experienced true “love” until someone took the time to wash my feet. How scarce the act of love had become in my home when I was a child. As I reminisce what happened that evening these simple but true words come to mind:

Tell them that you love them
Even when you don’t have the words
Even when it seems to fall on deaf ears
Tell them that you miss them
Even when they are near
Tell them that they belong
Even if they seem estranged
Tell them, tell them that they’re loved even when they have rage
Even when they cry and push you away
Even when you have nothing more to say
Tell them, tell them with your eyes
With your smile and with a kiss
But most of all just say “I love you”
To those little humans you call your kids