“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.” So begins the tender expression of poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning. She then describes the depth of her devotion: “I love thee to the level of everyday’s most quiet need.”¹
Such love is not expressed only in a nice card or a special gift. The greatest love poems are written in the book of daily, selfless sacrifice with the pen of thoughtfulness and the ink of kindness. How loving are those who give of their time and forget personal comfort in order to care for another.
Love usually isn’t mysterious—it always deepens as we open our hearts to another, as we are thoughtful and considerate. Many couples, newly married, wonder how their young love could ever become any stronger. They soon learn that the more they serve one another, the more they give of themselves, the greater grows their love. The seeds of true love, planted in romance, grow and blossom as we serve each other. This kind of love then bears the fruit of pure and wholesome joy, and our love yields a bountiful increase.
Those we love cannot question our devotion when they receive our loving service. A man who had a hard time telling his wife he loved her demonstrated that love as he cared for her through several years of illness. When he finally spoke of his love, she responded, “I know you love me. You have taken such good care of me.”
Real love is more than just a feeling, no matter how intense it may be. True love is shown in thoughtful acts of caring and kind attention to another’s “quiet need.”
Program #4041
¹“Sonnets from the Portuguese,” no. 43, The Complete Poetical Works of Mrs. Browning, ed. Harriet Waters Preston (1900), 223.