The Most Dangerous Words: I Love You

Three small words. "I love you." They carry more risk than their size suggests. A boyfriend says it to his girlfriend, or she says it first to him, and then the question hangs there: what happens if nothing comes back the other way?

Jesus told people to love their enemies. You can do that out loud or you can do it quietly, inside your own head, where no one hears it. Love answers hate. The people who make themselves your enemies tend to have a difficult path waiting for them later on, and God does not let us forget that.

I am not anyone else's judge. I don't have access to what God sees, and I don't have access to what another person carries around with them, so I'm in no position to decide what's right for them.

Holding a temper is something I work at, and I don't always manage it. Emotion shows up before the reasoning part of the mind has a chance to catch up. That part of the brain, by the way, isn't fully formed yet in teenagers, in a lot of young adults, and even in a fair number of grown adults.

Act fast, regret it slowly. So where is the harm in saying I love you, even silently, and then moving along without doing something reckless or letting loose a feeling that lands on someone else and wounds them?

Yesterday I may have started a bout of road rage. I cut through the loop where parents and friends pick up and drop off college students, and I think I pulled in front of a car that was easing out after letting someone off. That driver trailed me all the way downtown and then shot past me by swinging into the lane of oncoming traffic. The whole thing had already left my mind until I spotted the car again and placed it.

Positive thinking is the thing that works for me. I'm not fast getting anywhere. I take some things slowly, and I suppose that collects the fury of a few drivers behind me. (For the record, I've got a heavy foot of my own out on the highway, hurry or no hurry.) Most of the time I'm watching for whatever is beautiful in the people and the things around me. I watch for chances to help someone or keep an eye out for them. Now and then I'll offer a careful compliment, built on something I actually noticed.

Related