A little girl asked her mom, “Since love hurts, why do we love?” It’s a child’s question. Surely any semi-thoughtful adult would be able to field it while doing the dishes and listening to the evening news.

Well move me out of the semi-thoughtful adult column because I’m calling that one a stumper. Especially when I walk past the picture of my mother, a daughter of Pageland SC, “the watermelon capital of the world,” and she’s laughing because we just gave her a huge watermelon with a bow on it. I pause and look into her eyes and I can still hear the laugh. I smile because she’s smiling but my heart triples in weight and cries yet again, as it has for almost thirteen years, “I want my Momma.”

Or maybe I’m watching my sleeping father with his newly acquired oxygen tube and I’m wondering, just what would I give for one more round of golf? To relive one of those games where I, or he, I don’t care which, is only assured of winning on the last green.

Why do we love? The question itself hurts. I hate that a little girl already knows enough hurt to ask it. This early in life does she already get that the people we love all eventually leave? Surely she hasn’t noticed that those who are most precious sometimes hurt us the most. Or worse, we hurt them. Why do we love? Forget people, sometimes I wonder why we ever get a new dog?

But then I try to imagine my life without memories of my mother’s laugh; my life without memories of golf balls that went in from 20 yards out or just missed to the left, again it doesn’t matter, I was with my dad; my life without silly puppies that jumped for joy just because I came home. What would your life be like if that precious person who could hurt you like no other had never been in it? Empty? Void? Colorless? Would it really be life?

It occurs to me that when we are loving we are living life at its most real, most alive level. I believe we are built for it, created for it. Scripture proclaims that God is love and that God is the God of life so if you ask me, when we love we are experiencing God’s presence in our lives. We love because it makes us truly alive. We love because it makes us us.

I’ll go even further. It’s not just when we are laughing at watermelons or riding in golf carts. We are experiencing God’s presence in our lives when we hurt, sigh, and long for a day that feels like it’s gone forever. The apostle Paul says that is God’s Spirit joining with ours in those moments too deep for words. He says that in those moments we join with all creation in longing for the day when everything and everyone says, “This is right. This is good. This is wondrous.” We love because it’s more us than breath itself. It’s God’s best gift, a part of God’s self.

Thanks for asking your mother the question, young one. You make me want to love on. Let’s not be afraid of the hurt. I believe that Love will teach us how to do that.