How do you know

This has got to be one of my favourite poems, it tells the story of a young girl who seeks the guidance of an older woman, she pours out the fears of her heart to this woman and she responds with Grace and comfort. The older woman takes on the role of a Titus 2 woman in training younger woman to love their husbands as God intends. The young girl asks the questions which all us women wonder at some point ‘how do you know if you’re in love?’ and ‘what if you miss it?’ I had been asked both these questions within a matter of days of each other and wrote this in response.

Here sits the young girl at the feet of a wise and respected woman,
She looks up and asks that question we all desire to voice but are fearful to ask,
‘is true love attainable?’

the elderly woman takes the hand of the younger girl,
she smiles and her eyes sparkle with the memories of her younger years and the knowledge of the love she discovered in the man who still makes her heart warm and her face alight.
‘My dear child’ she speaks,
‘Never underestimate the power of love,
this gift is God given and when properly maintained, will last forever’

then the fear that torments the young heart flows from her lips,
‘But how do you know when you’ve found it? What if it passes me by unrecognised?’

‘Sometimes’ she replies, ‘the heart just knows.’
The young girl’s disappointment shows upon her face, the fear still evident in her eyes.

‘the man you love’ speaks her elder,
‘is the man who makes your heart skip a beat when he reaches for your hand,
he makes you smile when your world is falling down around you, he holds you close when all you need is to be held.
The man you love is the man you find yourself telling all those things you’ve never told before. He’s the man who respects you, who makes you feel important and desired, who listens to your deepest thoughts and whose thoughts you desire to know.
He is the man who wont turn away, he’s the man your scared to enter the future with but know that together you will make it.’

She looks the girl in the eyes and lovingly strokes her cheek,
‘but dear girl, do not be fooled’
‘this man will not be easy to find, nor will he be easy to keep.
You will daily fight the hardships of life,
For love is the greatest gift of all but the hardest one to receive,
Sometimes you’ll cry a thousand tears, sometimes you’ll fear things won’t work out and sometimes you’ll feel like giving up.
But how you treat one another in these times determines how your love will grow.’

The girl of lesser years asks the question only with her eyes.
The warmth she receives from the woman she views with such esteem comforts her heart and tells her she has much to learn.
‘The greatest test of love is simple’
‘look for God within your relationship, if He’s not there the answer is clear, do not continue to fool yourself.
But if you see Him,
If you see him in your heart and the heart of the man stood before you, if you see the pattern of God within your lives and you see that it is He who holds you together,

She sighs,
‘Then my child, you know all you ever need to know.’

The young girl ponders this within her heart,
She knows that what her elder says is true,
Now each man she meets is put to this timeless test,
Only the one who passes this shall ever receive the gift of her heart.

The girl grows up,
And now she sits,
her hand caressing the hair of her young daughter sat upon her lap,
as she recites the tale of love given from the Fathers heart,
bestowed on her and the father of her child,
she feels every memory, every emotion, every tear as she retells the story which led her to behold this dear child.

Her daughter now older,
Sits at her feet,
Looks up to her mother,
And asks that one question her heart desires to know,
‘Mother, how did you know?
How did you know that daddy was he whom you’d love forever?’
‘My precious daughter’ she smiles,
‘sometimes you just know’.