Bubbles On Broadway

You can see them floating all the way down the street, around the corner and a few make it to 9th Avenue. It’s those bubbles on Broadway emanating from the bubble machine—no, not from Lawrence Welk reruns, but from the LOVE Store, a place no one would want to miss.

The machine is mounted outside and makes bubbles all day long to entice you into the LOVE Store with its irresistible allure. Those revolving mirrored balls hit just right by the pin spots, the strings of red hearts pouring out their sentiment in the windows, the miniature electric train running its circuitous rounds, the rubber duckies in a row across the door bar, the doggies so fuzzy and warm, the signs in every aisle proclaiming, “LOVE is the answer”.

Isn’t it all just the greatest? At last a place to find love and you can get it anytime. It’s open every day and those bubbles keep blowing down Broadway. So I couldn’t resist. I went for it. I went into the LOVE Store to get some love.

Somehow my mind was so set to get what I came for that I really thought, “This is the real thing. I am loved”. But soon I saw the products all had price tags on them. They were going to charge me for this stuff! And two men walked the aisles and didn’t even hug me. They just avoided me and kept talking into their walkie talkies. There was a theft detector over the door like every other store in Manhattan.

The cashier was not friendly at all. And I saw a guard dog inside! They did not really love me. They were trying to use me. They just wanted my business under the guise of love. What a blow! I staggered down Broadway with bubbles all around me but they were bursting fast. Those bubbles on Broadway lured me in and then dropped me cold. No love, no caring. Just a come on. Empty promises. Heartbreak and the cold again.

Did you ever go for a Bubbles on Broadway relationship? There was love written all over this person. He said love is the answer and there would be plenty of it. For all your life—always gonna love you. The door is always open. The warm fuzzy doggies, the duckies, the mirrors. All beckoning you to come on in and get some love. Those bubbles on Broadway (the way is broad that leads to destruction) tickling your nose. Oh, this could be the real thing. I feel real love. Those bubbles are in my heart, so go for a bubbles on Broadway love.

At first, it all seems so rosy. I really feel I am loved and have gotten what I came for. But with the bubbles there is a price to pay. This is not what it’s cracked up to be. What looked so glittery and warm turned into theft detectors and guard dogs. This was not love. I was used and deceived. This was not love. It was bubbles on Broadway bursting in my heart. The LOVE Store is bankrupt and I’m out in the cold again.

So how can we keep from falling for bubbles on Broadway? Those “promise the moon and leave you in the mud” bubbles? Why are we so ready when someone says he loves us? Maybe because we have a giant emptiness where love is supposed to go but never got in.

We closed it off when we were very young and we thought someone was going to love us and think we were special, but then forgot us and we hurt a lot. So we closed up the place marked “a place for love” and soon we felt numb. We felt we could never be loved—that we were created for loneliness and rejection, and hunkered down to exist in that identity.

But God created us to have fellowship with Him and others, so we can’t make it without love. Even though we feel we are supposed to be rejected, we long for somebody to love us. A funny thing happens when we don’t have what we need. After a while we can’t think straight about it.

We can’t just say, “They couldn’t show their love to me, but God knows that and He will send me someone to love me.” No, we get all bothered and begin to think, “I’ll never be loved—if anyone tried to love me they’d find out how ugly and unlovable I am. Besides, when I try to talk to someone I get all frozen and can’t say anything or I talk too much and scare people off. So I guess I’ll always be alone.”

When we get to this point, if someone shows us any kind of attention, even perverted attention, we get all “bubbly”. Sometimes only the perverted attention seems safe because it feels like that’s what we’re destined for or what we deserve. So we fall for a bubbles on Broadway relationship and another let down—no love, no caring—out in the cold with a broken heart.

So how can we stop falling for bubbles on Broadway and begin to have relationships based on truth instead of lies? First we must begin at the root–the early lie that if my father or mother rejected me, then I’m going to be rejected all my life—“I’m not only rejected, I’m ‘rejectable’. No one could love me.”

Now perhaps one or both of your parents did not know how to love you, or did love you but did not know how to express it, or were too busy to think about loving anybody. But this does not mean you are not loveable or will always be rejected. It’s time to leave that lie and go for freedom.

You can be loved and you can be accepted because God says you are, but first you have to believe it and then you must present yourself to others with that identity. “I am acceptable and I was created to be loved.” You’ll be amazed at how this will change your life.

You will need to have someone pray to remove the old false identity of being unlovable and rejected and pray into your identity the truth—“I was created to be accepted and loved”. We must acknowledge that God not only created us to be loved but also will provide love for us.

You do not have to feel loveable to choose to believe you are. After all, God has shown that we are loved by giving His Son, Jesus to die for us, and as you agree with God by an act of your will, you will see a change begin in your heart. Choose first, have someone pray for you, and walk in the faith of what has been prayed.

Then work through whatever feelings you may have that may tell you God is not fair, or He is out to get you, or He will abandon you, or take every pleasure away from you. If you feel God is bad or unjust, that creates in you an attitude of hopelessness. You feel you are in the hands of an unjust and whimsical God—“How can I win? Just give up and do whatever because God is unpredictable and capricious and I don’t have a chance.”

These feelings must be put on paper and worked on by putting the TRUTH beside them to expose and enlighten. Then you can really learn to know God as He is, not as you feel He is. God will fill that void marked “a place for love”, and you will be free of the emptiness.

As you learn to love and be loved by Him, and love yourself, then it’s bye-bye Bubbles on Broadway and hello true relationship built on the Rock of Jesus’ love—not on the shaky sand of need.

Bubbles On Broadway
published June 1993
by Joanne Highley