Love Is a Tie
Hang my locket around your neck,
wear my ring on your finger.
Love is invincible facing danger and death.
Passion laughs at the terrors of hell.
The fire of love stops at nothing—
it sweeps everything before it.
Flood waters can’t drown love,
torrents of rain can’t put it out.
Song of Songs 8
Allow me to share a story with you from the annals of family lore. It was the summer of 2006; I was sixteen years old at the time, and all eighteen of us aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents were gathered to celebrate my grandparents’ 50th wedding anniversary. We had rented a lodge-like home for a week on the Gallatin River in south central Montana, and each day was filled with laughter, music and dancing, potato chips, and river splashing.
The ten of us young cousins were quite theatrical and had performed many plays, musical numbers, tap dance routines, and magic tricks over the years during a family tradition called “Ice Cream Entertainment.” In case you haven’t heard, Ice Cream Entertainment is the period after dinner in which everyone eats dessert and the kids get up to perform for the amusement and delight of all. This year’s Ice Cream Entertainment was building up to quite a finale—something I would not be amiss in calling a “spectacular.” The cousins had crafted an unparalleled musical revue for the evening of my grandparents’ anniversary, complete with the girls innocently singing “You Fill Up My Senses” by John Denver (my grandparents’ favorite song) into hairbrush microphones along with a compelling reenactment of their original wedding ceremony, all parts played by us.
But the most significant song of all was Love Is a Tie, an original love ballad written and performed by my cousins Jamie and Montana, who have quite lovely voices. However. As they squirreled off each day to practice their song in the days leading up to our big performance, several things became alarmingly apparent. With each day they practiced, the song grew longer and dare I say more obscure, reaching ambitious, ever-increasing operatic heights as its potential to be the greatest and lengthiest love ballad ever written. I should note that this 10+ verse song contained no discernible melody, though I believe the oft-repeating chorus was simply, “Love is a tie.” Furthermore, this song was to be sung as a duet in the style and vocal range of Elton John and Celine Dion. This is the scale of epic-ness that was attempted and by all accounts achieved, though at great cost to their audience.
In the days leading up to the performance, the rest of us were a bit nervous. Would this song endure forever? How then shall we live? At last the inevitable moment came. During the performance of Love Is a Tie, my dear grandparents simply sat there nodding with huge and patient smiles on their faces while the others of us cheered and smiled for the first ten minutes until we gradually began to check our watches and whisper among ourselves “Isn’t it time for cake?”
Any attempts to cut them off at the pass with polite yet premature clapping was met by a stern glance from whichever one of them was not singing, followed by a swift return to the angelic expression they had previously assumed. As the song continued, it became apparent to everyone’s chagrin that we were at their mercy. We would be here all night if they deemed it should be so, because who wants to shatter the hopes and hearts of two adorably earnest pre-teens singing about love for their grandparents?
As the first stars began to show in the night sky and the last vibrato repetition of “Love is a tiiiiieeeee” was uttered, the marathon of a song ended to fervent applause that had as much to do with “Thank God it’s over” as it did appreciation for the enormous feat they had accomplished. Whenever we recall that historic family reunion of ’06, it isn’t long before one of us quips, “Remember Love Is a Tie?” In fact, apart from our vibrant matching tie-dye t-shirts, that song is the memory which has usurped all others from our week together.
*
After my grandfather’s death this spring, Love Is a Tie became sweetly prophetic. As we shared our photos of him and scrolled through our phones for old voicemails he left and videos we took, my family began to gather and weave together those ties of love. Our memories are the sacred connections that bind us to him in our sorrow while filling us with great hope of being reunited with him in the future. Oh, how we have needed to believe that love is a tie which endures beyond the grave. In two weeks, my family will gather once more to honor my grandfather’s life and memory. There will be photos, laughter, songs, videos, tears, and stories shared. As I was thinking about his upcoming memorial while folding laundry this week, I remembered Love Is a Tie and giggled until I realized that the song is absolutely true.
Love is a tie. It is the strongest force on earth.
The great love ballad of Song of Songs says,
Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm;
for love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave.
It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame.
Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot sweep it away.(Song of Songs 8:6-7a)
Love is as strong as death. The poetry of this phrase has enchanted me since childhood, but I haven’t fully known what it meant until I was faced with the reality of death in my own life. The first person I ever lost was someone I don’t believe I’d even spoken to: our elderly school lunch lady. I remember being told of her passing while sitting in music class and weeping like my own mother had died. I didn’t know her, but that was the moment I learned that death is real and it wasn’t going anywhere. I would taste death multiple times in the years ahead, but I will never forget my frantic scrambling to recall a kindly interaction I may have had with her. I needed a memory to validate my grief—to tie me to love. What do we do in the face of loss and death? Honestly, how do we bear it? I believe the book of Proverbs gives us a clue.
In Proverbs chapter 3, the voice of Lady Wisdom speaks these words:
Let love and faithfulness never leave you;
bind them around your neck,
write them on the tablet of your heart.(Proverbs 3:3)
If there is any hope of redemption for the pain of loss, it is in binding ourselves to love and faithfulness—even when it would be easier to numb ourselves and try to move on. Sometimes it is easier to unbind ourselves from love and hold it at arm’s length, especially when we fear the loss of it. I confess there are times I loosen the cords of love by avoiding calling my grandparents. I love them so deeply and fear the loss of them so much that I do not know how I will handle them leaving this earth, so I put distance between us. There are times I have numbed myself to Drew’s affection because I fear it requires too much of me; I fear I am unable to reciprocate in the way he deserves. I am afraid to lose him, too.
As I write, I realize that fear is the number one thing that keeps me from binding myself to love and never letting go. I am afraid that I will not be able to give enough love, or that the love I give will not be returned, or that my love will be betrayed, or that what I give will be too much. When it becomes difficult for me to choose love over fear, 1 John 4:18 becomes my sure and steady guide:
There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear,
because fear has to do with punishment.
The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
This verse tells me that there is a love that goes deeper still, beyond what we can imagine or cultivate on our own—a love that is not just as strong as death, but stronger. There are strong ties that bind us to one another in love, but the passionate and tender love of God is what holds all of it together, undergirding these fragile tapestries we have woven of our hopes and fears and affections across our lives. Paul tells us in the book of Colossians that Jesus is the one who holds all things together:
For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
(Colossians 1:15-17)
In him, all things hold together. Even love and death, even hopes and fears, even dreams and unmet longings, even estranged family members, even broken bodies. God is love, and Love is the invisible force holding the cosmos together.
Paul tells us that because of this, we are to clothe ourselves with love each day:
So, chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you. And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It’s your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it.
(Colossians 3:12-14, MSG)
Because Jesus loved us unto death, we are forever bound to a love over which death has no claim. This divine love is stronger than the death of a dream, the death of a promise, the death of a job, the death of good health, the death of a marriage, the death of a beloved pet, or the death of a loved one.
Because God is eternal, Love is, too.
Are there areas of your life in which fear of loss, inadequacy, or betrayal has usurped your ability to love?
What would it look like to release those fears and instead bind yourself to the love of God—the love which undergirds, strengthens, perfects, and fulfills all other loves?
May Jesus meet you precisely in the place of your insecurity—binding you to himself, filling you to overflowing with the perfect love that casts out fear. And may the ever-present memory of this love saturate our past, present, and future, growing stronger each day until it becomes the air we breathe, the song we sing forever.
Love is a tie.
To Go Deeper: Listen to All Things Together by Andrew Peterson, a song based on Colossians 1:15-17.
Bonus Song! Even Unto Death by Audrey Assad. “You’re the lover of my soul / Even unto death / With my every breath, I will love You.”