My whiteboard is my home for all my ideas.
Good ones, bad ones, ones that need to be fleshed out…all my ideas for podcasts and columns get thrown up there, mostly because if I don’t put them somewhere as soon as they come to me, I will forget in five minutes. I can’t walk up or down the stairs these days without forgetting why I was changing locations in the first place.
My ideas need shelter from my aging brain, so the whiteboard is where they live until the brutal judgement of the dry eraser sweeps them away forever.
Recently, my home for ideas needed a home of its own. I had to move workspaces, and my whiteboard sat leaned against a wall in my new space, where I was fine to let it rest. The other day, I sat down to my desk and saw my husband had hung it for me. Behind the upper corner was a small line, drawn in pencil. A measurement line, peeking out from behind the board.
It made me smile.
I realized he had been making measurements to hang the board at level; but more than being a line of measurement for my whiteboard, I saw that line as a measurement of love.
It represents an act of service, from a husband to his wife. My husband knows my ideas need a home. A home is what he has always created for me, and here he was, doing one more thing to lend shelter to all of the things that make me…me. That line was the measurement of a quiet commitment to making a home for me.
It didn’t just represent the idea of small acts of service in support of a much bigger ideal, but it also told me that true love commits to correction.
You’ll notice the board isn’t hung perfectly along the line. That line says love isn’t perfect. That line says love involves trial and error at times. That line says when you’ve measured yourself, and found yourself wanting, you try again; you strive for better, because love demands we always strive for better. Love demands we never stop at “good enough.” Love is more, always more, never less.
Sometimes we want love to be big and bold. Sometimes it is, but mostly it is quiet and small. Like David fighting Goliath, its small package can slay big demons. We have to be careful not to get so caught up in the fireworks that we forget about the single, small flame that lights them in the first place.
Human love is not perfect, but it should measure itself against Perfect Love and keep trying, keep serving, keep striving for better until that day of perfection.
This is good to remember, because sometimes we get frustrated with each other, especially those closest to us. So let us remember that love doesn’t always look like big, flowery gestures. It doesn’t always feel like passion or exhilaration. They say, “Home is where the heart is” and that is so true, and that is what love looks like. Home. It looks like someone taking the measurements of your life to try to create a home where you can feel at ease and welcomed.
It looks like a small line on the wall, drawn in pencil, poking out from behind a need.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, 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 perseveres. Love never fails. 1Corinthians 13:4-7
