Those Three Words

Listening for Love
By Jayne Fisher

There are times when we are timid and shy about expressing the love we feel. For fear of embarrassing the other person, or ourselves, we hesitate to say the actual words ‘I love you’. So we try to communicate the idea in other words. We say ‘take care’ or ‘don’t drive too fast’ or ‘be good’.

But really, these are just other ways of saying ‘I love you’. ‘You are important to me’, ‘I care what happens to you, and ‘I don’t want you to get hurt’ all mean ‘I love you’. We are sometimes very strange people. The only thing we want to say, and the one thing that we should say, is the one thing we don’t say. And yet because the feeling is so real, and the need to say it is so strong, we are driven to use other words and signs to say what we really mean. And many times the meaning never gets communicated at all and the other person is left feeling unloved and unwanted.

Why do I find it so difficult to say these three words? I mean it. I always do. But I can never seem to find the courage to say it.

Perhaps there are some people that do realize what you really mean inside, but I know that actually hearing those three words means a whole lot more......

......Because I have been blessed enough to have someone say it to me.