Healthy Love Heals

I was watching the American Music Awards and saw two fabulous performers sing about two very different kinds of love.

Pink sang about a very common kind of love with her song Beautiful Trauma:

We were on fire
I slashed your tires
It’s like we burned so bright we burned out…
And when the chemicals leave my body
Yeah, they’re gonna find me in a hotel lobby ’cause

Mmm tough times they keep coming…
Some days like I’m barely breathing
And after we were high in the love, doped out

It was you
The pill I keep taking
The nightmare I’m waking
There’s nothing, no nothing, nothing but you
My perfect rock bottom
My beautiful trauma
My love, my love, my drug, oh

I’m sure many of us could identify with that kind of love. It’s passionate, energizing, exhilarating, and it feels so right at first. And sometimes we need that kind of experience on our journey.

But it’s one thing to ride a roller coaster to get the joy and excitement of an adrenaline rush— and it’s another thing entirely to try to actually live on a rollercoaster 24/7, day after day, week after week, that never stops, but just keeps jerking your body upside down over and over and over again. And just like a rollercoaster that never stops, that “beautiful trauma” kind of love will always end up jerking your heart around until you want to throw up. No matter how beautiful, trauma always ends up hurting.

Contrast that with the experience that Lady Gaga painted with her beautiful song The Cure:

I’ll undress you, ’cause you’re tired
Cover you as you desire
When you fall asleep inside my arms
May not have the fancy things
But I’ll give you everything
You could ever want, it’s in my arms

So baby tell me yes
And I will give you everything
So baby tell me yes
And I will be all yours tonight
So baby tell me yes
And I will give you everything
I will be right by your side

If I can’t find the cure, I’ll
I’ll fix you with my love
No matter what you know, I’ll
I’ll fix you with my love
And if you say you’re okay
I’m gonna heal you anyway
Promise I’ll always be there
Promise I’ll be the cure (be the cure)

Does your heart feel the difference? It’s hard for me to even read those lyrics without wanting to cry, because everything within me is saying “Yes!” to that kind of love.

When I hear this beautiful expression of love, I hear a love that is:

Perceptive & Caring— she sees he is tired and is physically caring for him

Spiritually Focused— she admits she doesn’t have “fancy things” but she realizes that his real need is just her loving presence

Committed— She promises that she will be all his, at his side, and will always be there

Healing— She knows that healthy love heals even the darkest and most broken places in our lives.

I can’t tell you the number of times that I’ve been in a rough place, a dark and broken place, and my sweet Tina has loved me out of it. There will be times when like in the song I’ll tell her that I’m okay, but her heart knows better, and she has loved me well. Every single time.

That, my friends, is the kind of the love worth experiencing, and that is the kind of love worth giving to another, too. Spiritual, perceptive, committed love heals. Don’t settle for beautiful trauma in your life, seek out and be the healthy love that heals.

Healthy Love Heals

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