"What Real Love Looks Like "
By Dena Dyer
http://www.denadyer.com

My son made my day—no, my decade—recently when we were licking ice cream cones at Sonic with his dad, Carey. (Every so often, we visit the king of milkshakes and burgers, in our pajamas. It's a quirky family tradition.) Nonchalantly, I asked my five year-old who he would marry if he could choose right now. Carey rolled his eyes, because he doesn't understand the motherly need for affirmation—yea, even worship--from the fruit of our labor.

Without hesitation, Jordan said, "You."

I kissed his sticky face, and I melted faster than a soft-serve cone in a Texas drought.

I know Jordan's hero-worship of me won't last forever. In fact, I knew it on the day we brought him home from the hospital. In a fit of hormonal fluctuation, I lay on the couch with my firstborn on my tummy, crying.

"What's wrong?" asked Carey.

"He's going to grow up and leave me for another woman," I sobbed. Again, Carey rolled his eyes.

But you, dear readers, understand.

You understand that never in our lives B.K. (before kids) had we experienced such passionate, fervent (even primal) love for someone. And in the B.K. years, we simply couldn't imagine that their unconditional acceptance would transform us even more than the changes wrought by romantic love.

To tell the truth, I was a very late bloomer in the love game .

In first grade, my friends and I played catch-'em-kiss-'em in the playground, and the girls won. I kissed a boy named Robbie, and he said "Yuck."

In eighth grade, a dark-headed Italian freshman I met at summer church camp held my hand after a bus ride. I wrote; he never wrote back.

In college, a guy whose name I can't remember asked me out to a freshman dance and then wanted to marry me. It was my turn to say “yuck.”

The next guy I dated dumped me for another girl when I went home for the weekend. And the only serious boyfriend I ever had told me after two years together that he was considering an “alternative lifestyle.”

It wasn't until after college that I met Carey, my soulmate. Many of my friends were already married when we said "I do." But I wouldn't trade the wait for anything.

Through many ups and downs, God taught me to stop running after false love and from His real love. I learned to bask myself in God's Son until I felt loved enough to not care whether a human being thought I was good-looking, talented, or smart. I learned--from wise teachers, godly counselors, and hard life experience--to wait for the best instead of settling for average.

Frederick Buechner once wrote, "Life itself is grace." I believe that love itself is grace, too--the kind of love that says hello with slobbery kisses and gifts of crumpled wildflowers, that asks for one more story---"Tree Pigs, 'Gin, Mama"--and hides Cheerios in the sofa when you aren't looking.

And this kind of love holds the wastebasket under my head all night on Valentine's Day after I've had some bad pasta. This kind of loves perseveres even in the face of competition from our kids, careers, and culture.
And this kind of love celebrates—with minimal eye-rolling--small miracles, like pajama-clad declarations of devotion, offered with a pure heart and sticky hands.

Dena Dyer is a writer, singer, actress and speaker who has had short stories, articles, book reviews, poems and devotionals published in over 100 magazines, including Woman’s World, Today’s Christian Woman, Spirit-Led Woman, Brio, HomeLife and Discipleship Journal. She is a regular columnist for SHINE magazine and has contributed to several books, including Rest Stops for Busy Moms (B & H, 2003) and God’s Little Devotional Book for Grandparents (Honor, 2003). Dena makes her home in Granbury, Texas, with her son (Jordan, 4) and performer/producer hubby (Carey, 31 but a child at heart). For more information, visit her website at: www.denadyer.com and read her blog at www.denadyer.typepad.com .