Living on love

Once upon a time, I believed you could live on love.

And why not?

When I met Danny at age 15, there was no doubt in my mind that our love was strong enough to weather every storm, to shield us from winter's worst blow and to satisfy our every hunger.

Easy enough when you've never weathered storms. It's easier still when you're living under your parents' roof and someone else is in charge of the purse strings, making sure there's a loaf of bread in the pantry and a full roll of toilet paper at the ready.

It gets a little tougher when jobs are hard to come by, funds run out before the bills do, and toilet paper suddenly becomes a line-item on the family budget, subject to veto, an extra-large box of Kleenex appropriated to finish the week.

Then, as two very young people grew up, preferences changed and differences in perceptions, goals and assumptions reared up, just as is true whenever two attempt to become one. Some of those storms produced barely a breeze and others ... well, let's just say, there were times when not only did it look like love wouldn't be enough, it didn't even look like love.

As the years passed, we endured many a stormy season. Somehow, we made it through and now, with the children grown and raising their own families, we find ourselves in one another's company almost to the exclusion of anyone else, apart from work and the obligatory family events. And wonder of wonders, we're still best friends, well-seasoned and well-suited to one another. In fact, during my recent "staycation" Danny remarked one day, "I almost believe we could live on love."

Either he is entering a second childhood, or something amazing happened during the intervening years.

On Oct. 21, 1955, while my mother labored to bring me forth from her womb in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, another mother labored in Richmond, Ind., to bring forth a son.

As we were making plans to change our lives by leaving Denver behind, moving to McCook, this man continued on his life path of honoring and serving God as a singer-songwriter of some of the most popular praise choruses in America's churches.

In fact, even as we unpacked boxes and settled into on a little rental house on the north side of town, he was in an abandoned church, recording the songs intended for his forthcoming project "The Jesus Record," on an inexpensive battery-operated cassette recorder.

Nine days later, on Sept. 19, 1997, at the age of 41, Rich Mullins died in a car accident.

His band, "A Ragamuffin Band," took up the project and produced a dual CD, one of the tape recordings from that abandoned church, the other the final, polished project, featuring well-known talent from the Christian recording industry and the Ragamuffin Band. I immediately bought one.

The songs are, in my humble opinion, the best from an already exceptional artist I had appreciated for years. I am so grateful that he had time to make the cassette recording and that he had people who loved him and the Lord enough to finish what he had left undone. Because one song in particular "All the Way to Kingdom Come," holds the key to the 360 degree turnaround in our belief that we could actually live on love.

The refrain says it all:

"We didn't know what love was, 'til he came.

"And he gave love a face, and he gave love a name.

"And he gave love away like the sky gives rain and sun

"We were looking for heroes - he came looking for the lost

"We were searching for glory and he showed us a cross

"Now we know what love is 'cause he loves us,

"All the way to kingdom come."

Looking into my husband's eyes that day in the kitchen when he said he almost believed we could live on love, it suddenly occurred to me, we do. Every day. We live on the love of God.

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always prevails. Love never fails." I Corinthians 13:4-8 (NIV)