What does true love look like? Holding hands, public affection, stolen glances?

Dusty Springfield sings:

The look of love is in your eyes

The look your smile can’t disguise.

The look of love
Is saying so much more than
Just words could every say
And what my heart has heard
Well, it takes my breath away… (Written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David)

What a powerful song. I remember that look of love and it is indescribable. It’s when the smile in his eyes says more than the smile on his lips. This song was popular when Bill and I first began to share that spark of love. You know the spark you experience with the accidental brush of hands. Or when he leans into your personal space to reach around you. The feel of his breath in your hair when he whispers in your ear during church.

The English language is lacking. We use the same word, love, to describe the way we feel about everything from the love for our dog as for chocolate. Love for grandmother as gardenias. The Love for God or the color blue. The love of a man for a woman. The writer of Proverbs 30:18-19 says:  There are three things too wonderful for me, four that I cannot understand: The way of an eagle in the sky, the way of a snake on a rock, the way of a ship at sea, and the way of a man with a woman. How do you describe the love of a man and woman?

Mysterious and beautiful. It’s a relationship like no other.

Bill and I married in April at the end of my senior year of high school. With one month to go before graduation, we stayed at a motel in Humble, Texas and Bill drove back and forth to Galveston where he worked. Each morning, I watched him drive North up the feeder road and take the U-turn. I waited and watched for him to come back up the South bound side of the freeway where we waved goodbye as he entered Highway 59 to make the seventy-mile drive one way to Galveston so I could finish school. That’s the look of love.

Believe me, that month was a very trying time. But our little habit of waving has stayed with us all these years. I still wave Bill off when he leaves me. And he waves me off when I leave him. Mistletoe even grew in the tree that hung over our back door. We joked that it was because we always kissed goodbye under that tree.

It’s not always easy to keep the habit.

I might be busy when he leaves or he’s in the middle of a ball game when I leave. But we still walk each other to the car and kiss goodbye. We wait for the other to pull away and turn the corner. When I leave, I watch him in the rearview mirror, waiting, and as I turn, I roll my window down, and look back. There he is standing, even in drizzle rain, and we wave. That’s the look of love.

Sometimes, I catch him watching me even as I often watch him, thinking how handsome he still is, even at 75. That’s the look of love.

When you spot each other across a crowded room and smile as you make eye contact, and without a word, know what the other is thinking. That’s the look of love.

When someone sees you, really sees you, and loves you anyway, that’s the look of love.

Jesus loves us like that. When He looked down from the cross and saw the people who had crucified Him, He said, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” That’s the look of love.

What does love look like to you? Do you have your own examples? Please share them in the comment section below. It would be great to hear about your look of love.

Remember, wherever you are you are, you are at the right place when you come to my website and read my blog. Come on back and share a slice of life with me.