"Do I Love You?"

“Do you love me?”

It’s a question Tevye, the lead character in Fiddler on the Roof, asks his wife of 25 years, Golde. And she responds:

“Do I love you?

With our daughters getting married

And this trouble in the town

You’re upset, you’re worn out

Go inside, go lie down!

Maybe it’s indigestion…”

Actually, it’s Easter Sunday as I sit down to write this missive, although I prefer to refer to this day as Resurrection Day. The common greeting throughout the Church that celebrates this day is:

“He is Risen!

He is Risen indeed!”

On this particular Resurrection Day I have to ask myself the question Golde asks herself in response to Tevye:

Do I love You?

I remember the newness of walking with Jesus. Michael and I were driving up the 101 North in Southern California, to see a friend of his. The window was down and we were passing through Ventura when it just hit me and I had to say it out loud:

“I love God!!”

And part of me was like, did I just really say that?

But I knew it was real. There was even joy in that moment of acknowledging the love growing in my heart.

It will be 40 years on Yom Kippur, this year, from the day I first opened my heart up to Jesus, as Lord and Savior, Messiah and King. And nothing has ever been the same since then. He has walked me through some deep valleys and I have stood on mountaintops with my hands upraised. Still, time and age take a toll on this all too mortal frame, and the soul is not unaffected.

One of our daughters is experiencing falling in love with Jesus, really, for the first time in her life. And it is beautiful, and almost unexpected, and maybe I am a even little jealous. I don’t know.

I used to walk empty beaches and lonely early-morning streets to connect to that lavish Love, to breathe in His presence and feel the muscles in my body un-tense as peace streamed in like a river. I hungered and thirsted for Him.

But in this season it’s hard for me to sit and be quiet for a time—and drink in His presence. To let His words tumble over me like a waterfall, loud in the silence, speaking in the stillness of my heart.

And I wonder, do I love You?

Golde eventually gives Tevye the answer he seeks, though indirectly:

“Do I love him?

For twenty-five years I’ve lived with him

Fought with him, starved with him

Twenty-five years my bed is his

If that’s not love, what is?”

And in their duet, that is enough of an answer for Tevye.

In some ways I can answer like Golde: Lord, we have been through a lot together. Some moments I wasn’t sure if I would survive, and yet here we are after all these years. I must love You to follow You in this way… I must.

And Jesus tells us in Scripture that if we love Him, we will obey Him. So—yes, that’s a lot of it. But I miss the yearning for what lies beyond this life, and the long walks—and the deep sense of God being so near I could almost touch Him. I miss being giddy in His Spirit, so much so it doesn’t matter what anyone thinks. And other times I don’t miss any of that. I feel numb and detached—and just older and colder.

Do I love You?

Yes, I do. But I want to love you so much more. Awaken my heart. Breathe Your Spring into my Winter once again that I, too, would arise.

"I know your deeds, your labor and your perseverance… Without growing weary, you have persevered and endured many things for the sake of My name. But I have this against you: You have abandoned your first love."(Revelation 2:2a,3)

-Sally Klein O'Connor

4/1/24