Picking On Daisies

She loves me ... she loves me not. She loves me ... she loves me not. She loves me ... she loves me not... How I remember those times when I was unsure of Her Love. "Her" could have been any of a dozen female types for whose love I longed. Most of us remember the moment we discovered she, or he, loved us in return. What exhilaration! We felt like dancing on clouds, shouting our love to the world. No more picking apart those poor daisies! No more longing for the love of that special "other". A few years ago I dreamed of a love that went even beyond that "daisy-picking" love of youth. In that dream I found myself talking with a young man because he carried a Bible. At first, I thought he was a brother in the Lord. But soon I spotted the book's title: The New World Bible. The guy was a Jehovah's Witness. During our conversation, he tried probing with the usual, divisive questions. Instead of trying to answer them, however, I concentrated on our common values, and the Bible's living role in our lives. I wanted him to realize that "members of Christendom" could be Christians, too. That his Theocracy was, in fact, a worldly organization, not to be confused with God's kingdom. But before I could get to all that good stuff, I began feeling a love for him that transcended any love I'd felt for a human being. I longed for him to realize how much God loved him, not because he sold books door-to-door, but because he lived, and for no other reason. When I awoke, I continued feeling that unprecedented love. I pondered the dream and the love that lingered from it until I realized why it had happened: God allowed me to feel an infinitesimal part of His love, even for a young man who pursued error. Then, for the first time in my life, I realized that was the kind of love God had for me. I realized being a Christian wasn't about holy living or my personal doctrine and convictions, despite those things' importance, but about receiving God's love through Jesus' sacrifice on the cross, and relaying it to the loveless world around me. I learned holy living and all that good religious stuff should flow out of a unique, God-given love-conviction, and outside of that order, all religious activity was nothing more than a sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. The joy I felt far transcended any I had felt when The Lady Of My Dreams declared her love for me. Rather than dancing on clouds, I danced on stars. And rather than simply enjoying that sensation, I realized it wasn't mine to hoard. The joy I felt must go out to the world, even as the angels sang at Jesus' birth. The world must know that God already proved his love to this fallen humanity, and whether or not we feel it as God allowed me to, His love is there, even for the most depraved of us. From that dream on, the daisy community was safe from my petal-picking hunger for love. But God's infinite love had found another conduit to a love-deprived world.