How do I love thee? Let me count the ways...

I've never been in love. This was one of my random thoughts of the nite. I've loved family. I've loved friends...but never have I experienced those "highest halls of happiness" my grandfather used to tease me about. Kind of a tragedy really...but it's the truth. I've crushed...I've dated...I've had boyfriends...but love has elluded me, leaving me to ponder this phenomenon as an outsider. A spectator. A critic.
What is it like to love? Really...
One can think of poetry and romance, maybe get a warm fuzzy or two...but that is only shallow and will be swept away without a root. Why do we love might be a better question. Is it the simple law of a thing called chemistry? Physical attraction? Intellectual amusement? A little arrow from a possessed angel? It's easy to love the ones who clean up nice...but what about the unloveables? The untouchables?
Who kisses the cheek of the disfigured? Who carresses the body of a burn victim? Who extends affection to the cranky old man who has nothing nice to say?
We pretend we know how to love, and yet we scoff at the abused wife who stays with her husband. We shake our heads at the man who stays with a cheating wife. We are apalled at the marriage of a murderer. A pedefile. A rapist. How could they possibly love? Who could possibly love them?
We could turn our questions to a Sovereign who reached into the deepest darkest pit and showed us what love truly is. He did not bend to social status and hung out with the rejected: prostitutes, theives, adulterers. He set His table with sinners. He kissed the cheek of one who would betray Him to death. He held the hand of the abuser and said "Father, forgive..." He turned to a thief and opened up to him the gates of paradise. He looked out on a world full of brokenness and hate and declared - "It is finished."
It is finished...we have been shown the gift of love by the one who created us to love. He is the one who is associated with the Ted Bundy's of the world and offers hope, and a heart of love. A love not conditioned by externals or actions...a love that is genuinely focused on the best for those He calls His own. It wasn't pity that nailed Him to the cross...it was love. Love for the untouchables. Love for the unloveables. Love for me. Love for you. Love for the worst person on the face of the planet. Love...
I want to see like Christ sees. I want to see the soul behind the surface...the potential and purpose beyond the physical realm we are trapped in.
And I want to love. I want to love as my Saviour loved me...beyond culture. Beyond conditions. Beyond comprehension.