Say It: "I love you and so does God."

Say it: “I love you. So Does God.”

One thing I have been absolutely sure of all my life is that my Mother loved me. She certainly demonstrated that day after day, year after year. I was number three out of the nine children that she bore. It is impossible to count the number of loads of laundry she did, all before the days of automatic washers or dryers. Each of us kids took our turn at having the measles, whooping cough, mumps, and red-eye. I grew up during the great depression and even dad’s salary of $60.00 a month was not always paid so she scrimped as she made us our daily portion of potatoes and gravy. And I will never forget her sound advice given to me when I was frustrated with our meager diet. She always said, “If you are hungry then jelly bread tastes good.” But three words I did not hear from her were “Melvin, I love you.”

Maybe there was something in our German heritage that frowned upon expressions of endearment. Maybe it had not been the custom in her childhood. I just know that it was not part of my growing-up memories to hear those words. So it is not surprising that when I was in my late thirties and our family was going through some stressful times that I first recall her saying to me “Melvin, I love you.” And it was wonderful to hear those words even if I had never doubted that truth.

Then ten years later we had concluded a difficult talk in which I revealed that I was resigning a significant position in The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and was transferring to another Lutheran body that she said to me “Mel, I love you and so does God “.

I guess the fact that I remember that incident today, decades later, proves how important they were to me. And they have been helpful to me in passing on to others. I have learned the lesson that at the appropriate time I can assure another that I love them by saying those simple words “I love you.”

To add the expression “And so does God’ is sometimes a vitally important addition. I think one must guard against using that phrase too flippantly or too casually as if it were be just an everyday casual expression. But at the right moment and said with genuine conviction those four added words carry very special significance to the hearer.  I know I have been told by others, “No one has ever before told me that they loved me and so does God.”

One of the pledges of Christian baptism is that the baptized say that they will “Proclaim God’s love in Christ through word and deed”. One of the simplest and yet most profound way to do that is to simply and honestly say to another, “ I love you. And so does God.”