Lucille's

CAN'T BUY ME LOVE

..........Goodness knows I've tried! Well not with money....but you know what  I mean don't you?

I remenber being in Grade 2 and befriending a little girl whose name was Lynda. I noticed that she was always alone......no gaggle of 7 year-old girls clustered around her. She and I often went to her house right by the school to eat our lunch. She started offering me things. One day I brought home a little Golden Book she had given me. Mother said something I will always remember, "Give it back to her. Tell her thanks, but that she doesn't need to buy your friendship."

Friendship, like love is something we freely give. If it is co-erced, pushed, orchestrated or manipulated then it is not real. It is hollow and the sound and feel of hollow is well.....hollow!

I have experienced both real love and friendship....the kind where words are extraneous.....where a look in the eye or a hand on the arm says everything. I have been in hopeless situations where people who know how to love gave of themselves and their resources to rescue me from despair. I have friends who know my very heart and soul and the connection we have goes deep.

But I have also tried to buy love. I have been the doormat,trampled threadbare by unwarranted criticism, my self-esteem oozing out of my pores by the minute. I've also perfected the art of the silent martyr..."I'll just try harder" although aready taxed to the max.

I have stood up for myself demanding respect and love, expressed my needs, loved unconditionally, cried buckets......all to no avail.

In the end, we all know that love or an offer of friendship involves a decision. We choose a person as a whole package, admiring or identifying with certain traits, but also accepting their less than finer points. We can't make others love us. They either do or they don't. Eventually we make a decision whether to keep caring in spite of how we are treated or to walk away.

I have heard stories of women who have acted in love to a lesser than stellar husband, often starved for any morsel of kindness or expression of caring. They have purposed to love no matter whether that love was ever returned and have gradually seen an amazing transformation take place in thier husband's lives, and have gone on to have rich, rewarding marriages.

Not everyone is capable of that but maybe we should lean in that direction. Our love, our friendship can change the world for hurting people who are stuck in and responding to old wounds that are still gaping We can be their salve.

That's what God does. He loves in spite....not because. There is no price to pay, no measuring rod, no list to follow.......just love freely given. He loves everything about us, delights in us when we use the talents and abilities he's gifted us, adores us when we mess up, waits patiently till we turn around and see him for who he is, tolerates our ingratitude, forgives our shortcomings, desires us.

Not a bad model to follow