A university instructor asked her class, "What has four legs and leaves?" One of the co-eds answered, "My last two boyfriends."

An offended husband was about to run away when his wife said, "Don't go. You always leave when I need you the most."

Before I started learning about love relationships I didn't have much of a clue. I don't know why it took me so long to come around. When I learned about emotional security several years ago, it was like a revelation. Our loved ones need the assurance that we are there for them, not just when the going is good, but through thick and thin, good times and bad.

The test of love is to stay when you want to leave, to give when you feel empty, and to love when it is hardest.

When we've had a disagreement or sharp words with our loved one, we need to be the first to apologize and express a commitment of constant love. It's easy to feel justified in being right. What's hard is being humble and doing what's right for the relationship. When two people can put love above their differences, they preserve enduring kindness in their commitment.

Which individuals are most meaningful in our lives? Henri Nouwen writes, "It is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares." (From "Out of Solitude")

Empathy is a gift from the heart. We may not understand or know what someone else is going through, but genuine love reaches out with compassion to take in another's pain. Through sharing we can relieve one another's burdens. Frank Tyger said, "If you cannot lift the load off another's back, do not walk away. Try to lighten it."

A young mother's daughter died unexpectedly. Many of her friends felt awkward and avoided her, because they didn't know what they could possibly say to comfort her. One person said, "I can't possibly know what you're going through, but I share your sorrow." Another woman went to her grieving friend's house and just cried with her while they embraced.

A soft answer turneth away wrath. The Proverb is true in any circumstance, not just as a cure to an angry reaction.

Someone once said, "A friend is one to whom you can pour out the contents of your heart, chaff and grain alike. Knowing that the gentlest of hands will take and sift it, keep what is worth keeping and with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away."

Emotional security is the assurance of constant love, in spite of the fact that we're all human. It is an important aspect of agency. Love isn't deserved or denied, conditionally given or taken back. It isn't a barter commodity. In its truest form love is an open-ended endowment, a gift that keeps on giving. Emotional security fosters openness and trust, allowing personal growth in an environment of acceptance.
 
 

Reading Shelf

Out of Solitude
Three Meditations on the Christian Life
by Henri Nouwen

The careful balance between silence and words, withdrawal and involvement, distance and closeness, solitude and community forms the basis of the Christian life and, according to Nouwen, should therefore be the subject of our most personal attention.

In 64 pages, Nouwen 's three beautifully written, scripture-based meditations show how, in solitude, Jesus found the courage to follow God's will, not his own -- the core the Christian life, a message of profound importance.

1. Out of Solitude; the necessity of prayer away from the crowd.

2. With Care; in solitude our caring grows strong and mature.

3. In Expectation; the expectation of Christ's coming affects our solitude and care.

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