я тебя люблю

Love is kind.

Love has been such a heavy word for me to say. Any time that I tell someone that I love them, I feel it rising from the very inside of me and exploding out of my lips. I spent a summer learning the extravagance of God's love, and I learned it in so many different ways.

Marianna was the most vibrant example of God's love to me through everything. Week 7 was one of the most ridiculously rough weeks of my life. My cabin was just set on fighting at every opportunity they could find. Their arguments would last for incessant amount of times, no matter how many times I broke them up, took them apart, talked to them individually, and then sat them down to talk to one another. I still found them bickering and standing divided by the end of the night.

I was frustrated, and now that I look back upon it, I wish that I had expressed patience more that week than I did. I realized how tired I was, how much I was relying on God's strength to get me through, and sometimes I wanted to just the smallest amount that I could to get by. I could hardly stand come Wednesday day after Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday nights were all nights that my campers refused to let me sleep.

But, I digress. Marianna was a blessing from Heaven that week, hands-down. Our conversations were often simple words and rarely grammatically correct. Marianna spoke fluent Russian and understood English, but couldn't repeat it back. It was definitely a struggle that we had such a language barrier and that she was in the cabin of arguing. I can't imagine going to a different country and being completely surrounded by people arguing in a different language day in and day out.

But, Marianna and I had some of the most simple expressions of love. She was the most kind creature when she wasn't frustrated with the barrier of communication. She would grab my hand, give me a hug, and with her big Russian eyes let me know that she loved me in Russian. And even in the most frustrating of confrontations with her, I could repeat over and over that I loved her.

I couldn't get visibly angry because she would grow defensive, but if I simply repeated over and over that I loved her, making it a question that she had to respond to, we would let love conquer all of the problems that were coming between the two of us.

Love is kind. "Showing sympathy or understanding." That's one definition of kind that I can really wrap my brain around, now. Understanding can be shown, not just expressed in words. "я тебя люблю"