Love me please!

What is it in the female species that makes us crave love?
Is Disney and all the princess-happily ever after hoopla to blame?
Is it because from the time of birth little girls are doted upon and lavished with love?
Or is it just inate and part of our DNA?
Maybe it's a combination of all of the above.

Whatever it is, it starts from a young age.
When Lana was 4 she came down the stairs one day bawling her little eyes out because Wyatt said he didn't want to be her boyfriend because he liked somebody else.
At 4 years old my unsuspecting little girl had her first heartbreak.
It was pitiful...she cried and cried and I held her.
Then we talked about love and heartbreak. As much as you can talk about such things with a 4 year old.

Then there is today and the picture above.
We went to the zoo. Kim, Heather, Paige, Ginger and I and all the kids.
Somebody told Lana that Silas was in love with her.
Thats all she needed. She then followed him around and tormented him with her love until Silas finally said exasperated..."I don't want to be in love with you!"
Poor Silas, how was he to know he'd been set up. But he will move on and not think another thing about it. He is after all, a boy. This is the way of boys.

But Lana...well the carrot of "Love" has been dangled above her tiny little face and then taken away. What will this do to my 5 year olds spirit?

Jer. 24:7 says...
"I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord. They will be my people and I will be their God, for they will return to me with all their hearts."

This is one of those life experiences that I am sure God gives to Moms as an oppurtunity to show our children the Gospel. It is my duty now not to pick apart the right and wrong of the situation as a whole, i.e. the planting in her ear by another child that someone else loves her....but to point her to the Gospel of Christ. To remind her that God has given her that sweet heart inside her that longs to love and to be loved. That He has given her that heart to use for Him and His glory. And that He alone is the one that will truly satisfy her need for love.
His love for her sent His son to die a cruel death on a cruel cross. His love for her produced an empty tomb that once held her personal atonement. His love for her is unlimited, unending, undying.

There will be many more oppurtunities in her life for heartache and I pray that each of these experiences gives her a bigger and better understanding of the Gospel.

Don't I wish I could save my children from heartbreak...the biggest heartbreak coming from being guilty of love. But I guess then we would miss out on the lessons and the joys and the potential for growing closer to Christ and furthering His glory.

I love this quote by C.S Lewis...
"To love at all is to be vunerable. Love anthing, and your heart will certainliy be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it careful round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entaglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket-safe, dark, motionless, airless-it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable...The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers of love...is Hell."