Love is hard. Love is work. Love is draining. Love is not what I thought it would be.
Rewind a dozen years back to when we first got married. These truths hit me not long after we said "I do." The reality hit that we had no idea how to love each other and that we both were living to love ourselves. Of course we were in love, and we wanted to love each other, but we seriously had a hard time doing it for a long time. At least loving each other right, the way that we do now.
It took a few hard years to learn that the core of love, true love, is sacrifice, servanthood and selflessness. It took even longer to start to put all that into practice. And it is still taking work to be selfless daily, multiple times a day, for the good of our marriage. But, through all that work, do you know what I found? I found that I like to be selfless. I like it when my hubby and kids get the best parts and I see that my day has not revolved only around me. I like the look on my husband's face when he notices I did something for him, that I did something for our family and I did it out of love. But even if he does not notice, I still like to do things for him to show him how much I love him. I also have learned (and am still learning) to keep my mouth closed as a selfless act, to not bring glory or attention to myself by getting the last word, making sure I'm known to be right or using a condescending tone. And he does the same for me. And that is love. Choosing to be selfless for the good of someone else. Choosing to put yourself and your thoughts and your desires and your words after someone else.
Early on in our marriage it felt like we were keeping tally of who was better, who did what, who did more, who did it best. We were young and trying to figure out who we were in this world and make two crazy different personalities coexist in one house. I look back at those two people and cringe that we missed out on chances to grow and change. It took longer than I would have liked, but eventually we have changed, and I am sure that we will grow and change even more in the future.
Love is not just being able to pour out your heart and soul. It is not just finding your soul mate. It is not just the fluttering feeling that we feel inside. The love that Christ intended, that he modeled is one of selflessness. It is one that is eternal. It is one that we truly cannot fulfill. We are called to imitate Christ in this life and above all else he calls us to love: Love God and love man.
And yet our Valentines is based around feelings and expectations. God has called us to an eternally focused love. To love outside of ourselves, beyond ourselves, and love as Christ loved. And that definitely includes our spouse. My husband is to love me as Christ loved the church. My purpose, my eternal-focused love of my husband, needs to be bigger than the love of this world. For this world is fleeting and the feelings that are inside us will dwindle at times and things will get hard and the flesh will want to give up. But through Christ's love, we can love better. I am so glad that on our wedding day, we chose each other for life. We chose each other knowing our love was not enough or the most important. Knowing it would be messy and realizing quickly it would be way too hard to do on our own, without Christ and his love working through us.
I am so thankful for my husband that strives to love Christ first so he can love me better. I am thankful for the time I get to have him here with me, where I can learn to love him better. My heart still flutters with him, it truly does, but more than that, he takes delight in my growing more like Christ. He encourages me to love God more. And I am so thankful the lessons on being selfless sink in more and more each day, where we can choose to have our marriage and our love reflect Christ.
The world wants us to set our mind and settle our lives on things that are not eternal and are not Christ focused. But while our culture wants us to make sure we have warm fuzzies, Christ wants us to love like He did, out of a servants heart with a bigger purpose.
Great post!
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