If You’re Ever Going to Love Me

If you’re ever going to love me love me now, while I can know
All the sweet and tender feelings which from real affection flow.
Love me now, while I am living; do not wait till I am gone
And then chisel it in marble--warm love words on ice-cold stone.

If you’ve dear, sweet thoughts about me, why not whisper them to me?
Don’t you know ‘twould make me happy and as glad as glad could be?
If you wait till I am sleeping, ne’er to waken here again,
There’ll be walls of earth between us and I couldn’t hear you then.

If you knew someone was thirsting for a drop of water sweet
Would you be so slow to bring it?  Would you step with laggard feet?
There are tender hearts all round us who are thirsting for our love;
Why withhold from them what nature makes them crave all else above?

I won’t need your kind caresses when the grass grows o’er my face;
I won’t crave your love or kisses in my last low resting place.
So, then, if you love me any, if it’s but a little bit,
Let me know it now while living;  I can own and treasure it.

Author unknown

The first time I heard this poignant poem was decades ago while reading it in The Best Loved Poems Of the American People compiled by Hazel Felleman and which is actually still in print.  I can no longer read this poem without hearing the haunting melody and the southern voice of the old country singer, Tex Ritter.  It is worth searching out a recording of Tex Ritter singing it.

With our culture changing so fast, with personal communication so poor, with families and friends torn apart, I felt the words of this poem were pertinent for today--any day.

Dear ladies, we need to realize what is really important in life.  It isn’t all that we do and who we are and what we look like, etc.  Life is all about relationships.  Our relationship with God, our relationships with our families, our relationships with friends, and our relationships with the lost.  People are what matter in our lives.

Each one of us have broken relationships.  If it is with the LORD---then humbly repent.  God never holds a grudge against His children.  He is always encouraging and waiting for your return to Him.  When you are back in a right relationship with Him, then you are able to do much more in the other broken relationships in your life.

If it is with your family or friends, then show mercy over judgment.  If it is they who are refusing a relationship, then you always be lovingly open so by your kindness they may eventually realize their part in the brokeness and return to you.

Always be thinking of how to show you care and love one another. This world is unloving, but we can be a light for the LORD because we choose to show kindness, mercy, and love.  Let us not wait until it is too late to share our lives and our love with others.

“Let love be without hypocrisy.  Abhor what is evil;  cling to what is good.  Be devoted to one another in brotherly love;  give preference to one another in honor, not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the LORD;  rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer, contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality."  Romans 12:9-13