Love?

Love.

What comes to mind when you hear that word? 

Perhaps, a vision of candlelighted romance, gauzy dress, and delicate dancing. 

Or perhaps ecstasy and kisses. Sweet nothings whispered in the heat of passion by a fevered lover. 

Perhaps the first blush of young sweethearts, timidity and courage enchantingly mingled. 

Mayhap your idea of love melds with the souls of those, high and holy, who have forsaken all, even life itself, for the glories of martyrdom on some distant, shrapnel - wracked field. 

Or, perhaps, you think of the radiant glow of motherhood, the full to bursting heart as she caresses the new young life. 

Perhaps the bitter heart wrenching tears shed at midnight by those abandoned by the ones sworn to remain til parted by death. 

Perhaps the willingness to do what is in the other persons best interest despite personal cost. 

....Or perhaps........ just perhaps..........your view of love entails a bruised bloody, and broken body ruthlessly thrust to the ground as the brutal whip rains down blows on head and shoulders bowed as if in prayer. 

Perhaps it watches as that same body bends beneath the crushing load it slowly drags up the steep incline. 

Perhaps it jostles for prominence in the crowd surrounding the form, now raised high above the heads of those at the foot of the cross and breathlessly awaits his final words. 

Perhaps it joins the weeping once he is indisputably laid to rest, never to again grace the land of the living. 

But perhaps.

Perhaps perhaps perhaps.

Perhaps it stands in enraptured awe as you place your hand in the hand of the one who was dead and behold is alive forevermore, as the rising sun signals the dawn of a new life. 

And the words of the old writ echo in your ears while you stand on the shores of the cloud tossed sea to hear His whisper in the waves. 

"No greater love hath man than this". 

No 

Greater 

Love.