Love is...
What IS love?…(Baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me….no more). All you need is Love, Love is a many splendored thing, Love lift us up where we belong, I will always Love you, the power of Love, crazy little thing called Love….. so many songs that can try and explain to us what love is. Do we really know though?
I don’t spend too much time on my blog writing about my marriage. Trust me, there are too many crazy stories to count that I could write, on the endless lessons I’ve learned over these past 20 years of marital bliss. I’ve kept this blog mainly for families with kids, but what would my story be without a few looks into the relationship that caused this 4-kid chaos in the first place! I mean it’s Valentines day right?
My husband and I met when we were both Seniors in High School. To this day I can not tell you what it was that stuck us together (other than his relentless grand jestures to win my affection) through the weird days of dating and not dating while juggling college and trying new jobs or career paths. Somehow I just couldn’t picture my future without him and he felt the same. We got married and grew into adults together, while trying to care for some little rug rats we were bringing into the world… one right after the other! Life goes on… we followed the path, made the hard choices, celebrated the good, and survived the bad. The road has not been easy. Many married folks will tell you that as well. Some marriages endure far more pain than others, and their stories are ones of bearing unspeakable hurt or guilt, believing in the future and/or hoping for love to return to them. Love is ….hoping all things.
Last week our youngest daughter brought home some cute activities she had completed at school. One was a staple bound, construction paper book. On the front was printed “All About__________” , where she filled in the name Donld Taylor (Donald- for those that can’t read 2nd grader, and that being her father). Each page had a few sentences about his favorite things with a cute drawing to illustrate. We discovered she believes his favorite color to be orange, he wears lots of blue t-shirts (he has to wear a blue shirt for work), loves chicken wings and daritose (Doritoes) , and hugs. The page that left me speechless was when she answered who her Dads favorite person was.
Her Dads favorite person was her mom, and she knew it! Honestly, in my skewed brain, on some days I believe I'm his least favorite person and he could probably say the same, as is the case in many relationships. However, through all the days that we have been riding the ups and downs of our accord…. our daughter saw her daddy loving her mommy. In that moment my eyes were opened, kinda like in a movie where the main character has an amazing self discovery and the shot zooms from far away right into their blank stare and everything else fades to black. I was fortunate enough to see my marriage through my 8 year olds eyes and it lifted some blinders for me. I hadn’t been acting like I was his favorite person, because I didn’t believe it. But here it was…written down… by a kid (and kids are brutally honest). Love is….believing all things.
When you make the vow for the first time to spend the rest of your life with someone, for better or worse, you don’t competely understand how many days the worse could outweigh the good or that the better might take some extra work on your part; for richer or poorer just might be a bigger deal in the union for life than you planned it to be; and in sickness and health just might mean an addiction or bad habit that takes years of support and frustration you never understood before. Love is…enduring all things.
God gives us the perfect example for how to love in His word. I’ve read 1 Corinthians 13, also known as The Love Chapter (or as I say it..Luuuuv chapter), many times before. He perfectly breaks down any situation this life could hand you and suggests that love is the answer to it all. But in our world Love is… numb, or desensitized. Our world has no clue the power that love has. When we love someone (even on the worse days) others can see that love (especially the one receiving it) and God uses the love we share to reveal Himself. My daughter saw it and helped me to see it too.
I enjoy the version of 1 Corinthians 13:1-8 from The Message Bible. It’s a clear picture of how important loving someone can be and as a result shows us the love God has for us and why He says it's the greatest commandment.
"If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love,
I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.
If I speak God’s word with power, revealing all His mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if
I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love,
I’m nothing.
If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten
nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.
Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always, “me first”,
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
Love NEVER dies."
To my husband: I love you, Always have…always will.
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