Love Does. Indeed.

“Whimsy doesn't care if you are the driver or the passenger; all that matters is that you are on your way.”
“I used to be afraid of failing at something that really mattered to me, but now I'm more afraid of succeeding at things that don't matter.”
 - Bob Goff


Bob's Goff's book "Love Does" is a collection of stories from his extraordinary life, centering on one main theme: love doesn't just say words or feel emotions, it DOES things. Love expresses itself in physical ways. It's not enough to feel or say it. With love, you've got to see it and show it.

Bob has led a life that some may call plain crazy. A lawyer who didn't have high enough grades to get into law school, but through ten days of determination and patience he was accepted. Who likes to use a skateboard to get to his office (when he isn't officing from Tom Sawyer Island in Disney World). Who opened a school for kids in Rwanda that has helped hundreds of students. With his completely outside-the-box thinking and the incredible ways in which he has helped show God's love to so many, it could be easy for the reader to think that their life is small in comparison.

But I don't think there is such a thing as a small life. I tend to believe that Bob would agree with me.

I haven't started a non-profit or climbed a fourteener, yet I know my life is already full of ways in which love has shown itself all around me through adventures and gifts and things learned. They may seem small, but they are real, and who is judging, anyway? There's the time when I was six and my sister and I came downstairs on Christmas morning to the huge, perfect dollhouse that our Dad had designed and built and our Mom had decorated. There's the nature journals my Mom had me keep, encouraging my love of exploring and collecting, something that I've discovered is an innate part of my personality, watered lovingly at a young age. The time my Dad put a ladder against the side of the house and I climbed up to the tin roof and watching distant fireworks with my family and boyfriend. Or the various ways in which I've found myself having to decide whether or not to help people: the woman at the library who needed a ride, the Salvation Army bell ringer who could use a cup of coffee, the mother and daughter who approached me in a parking lot and asked if I could give a little money towards rent, and others. The time I took the trains from the Chicago O'Hare airport to Elgin and found myself in need of directions from a homeless man, then waiting for a train as a huge crowd of Scots and Brits flooded through, sporting flags and kilts and bellowing about the PGA. The times I walked around Edinburgh and visited castles, and the tea house where J.K. Rowling began to write her famous novels, navigating the city through the guidance of a pocket map and the kind strangers who gave me directions, sometimes before I even asked. The mission trip to Peru, when I helped dig a water well, held a flashlight so our light-less boat wouldn't crash as we navigated a river in the pitch-black night, and held a sloth and boa constrictor at a jungle petting zoo.

In each of those times, and so many others, I can look back and find God's loving handiwork all over. The love of my parents, my love of adventure and helping others, and the joy of new experiences which grow me remain as treasured memories. Even the less-than-good things can have silver linings. For instance, in losing my beloved camera and new lens and case to a not-caught thief, and losing the use of my beautiful VW to a crooked mechanic, I've experienced a truth I've always known but can now accept with a smile: no matter how much I may like my things, they are just things. As my pastor says, 'Everything we have is a loaner from the owner'. How true.

In reading "Love Does", I felt inspired to live to the fullest, looking ahead with anticipation, yet also to look back at the abounding blessings I have known so far. I have to say, there have been some great ones. I've never had the kind of money that Bob has, and money can certainly make it easier to do big, grand things, but it's not the only way. There's an elegant grace to things that are quiet, simple. "Tis a gift to be simple, tis a gift to be free", as the song goes. There's even a beauty to things that are messy and painful, like having my car ruined or losing a loved one whom you know you'll see in heaven someday. Or for Bob, having his Jeep stolen and his favorite very-expensive painting dinged up, because dings and scars and heartaches produce character, of which love is stronger than any loss. Making us stronger, more thankful, more alive, and just MORE: that's what love does. Indeed.