A token expression of love, like “love ya” or “love you,” can, in my opinion, lack the full meaning of expressing love. I ask: do two words really convey the innermost feelings of one person for another, or is something missing?
Perhaps they do, and maybe
it’s just me feeling this way because of my past. It may be that when some men say, “love you”
or “love ya,” they are holding back a bit—whether consciously or not—because of
a kind of masculine conditioning that makes it difficult to say, “I love you.”
As I see it, most boys are
raised to become men—protectors, breadwinners, the stronger of the two
sexes. So, it doesn’t surprise me when,
at the end of a text or email, the words “love you” or “love ya” appear without
the “I” in front. For whatever reason,
“I love you” feels very personal, and for some men, it’s hard to say.
These thoughts come from my
own experience growing up. I never heard
the words “I love you” spoken in our home by my father. I knew he loved me, but for reasons unknown
to me, he never said them—and I missed hearing them. Perhaps he never heard those words in his own
childhood. I know his mother, my
grandmother, showed little affection to me as a boy. Why it was that way, I can only speculate.
When I had children of my own,
I made a decision early on: they would hear the words “I love you” from their
father as they grew into adulthood. I
chose not to repeat what I had experienced.
That omission stopped with me.
God also blessed me with a
wife who has filled my life with love and compassion every day. She was raised hearing those words. Her father, however, had a very different
beginning. He was a hardened man for
many years, shaped by a difficult and painful childhood. But through his marriage and his faith, his
life changed. Where there had once been
hardness, there came softness. Where
there had been silence, there came expression.
He learned to love openly when Jesus came into his heart.
I share that not to compare
stories, but to show that change is possible.
No matter what we were given—or not given—we are not bound to remain the
same.
I do not write this to
disrespect my father. I knew his
limitations in expressing love, and I chose a different path. That’s all.
Perhaps God is working in you
in an area where expressing love is difficult because of past hurts. If so, I encourage you to step away from what
held you back and step into something greater.
In that place, expressions of love can flow more freely—clearly, fully,
and without hesitation.
When a person steps into God’s love, they walk a new walk and talk a new talk with love expressed at every turn. His love is bountiful—making it easy to share the words, “I love you.”
Written by,
Papa Boyd
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