February is definitely a lovey-dovey month in our home. We have the very commercial Valentine’s Day, or as my husband and I refer to it (thanks to a TV show) Valen Time’s Day… the Time of the Valen. ANNND… our wedding anniversary is in February as well. SUPER Love-fest going on. So of course, that does bring the concept of love to the forefront of my thoughts.
For so many years of my life I had the wrong understanding of love. I had been led astray by the commercialization and romanticized versions of love that I had been exposed to. I’ll explain. I wanted to so very much experience the passion and intensity that came from movies. To internalize and truly feel the tenderness that radiated from fairy-tales. But probably the worst expectation was that of the prince charming. This movie/cartoon version of a man: do you know the man I speak of? He’s strong yet vulnerable, dominant yet passive, who cooks, cleans, helps with laundry, intuitively knows when his partner needs help, or when they need support, or when they need to be left alone… he would just KNOW. The man who knows exactly what to say and when to say it. Who is funny and serious and romantic and super handsome? You know… the guy in books, movies, fairy tales… that guy.
People… not only was my view of LOVE skewed, but my idea of a partner was this unrealistic, ideal. Very quickly and early-on the ideal “prince-charming” concept flew right out the window. But the desire for that pretend kind of love would hang around for YEARS. It was like a sea of disappointment that came at me with this unrelenting velocity, always threatening to overtake me like a flash flood. It was very sad. Honestly, it wasn’t until I became a believer in 2006 that I can say my perspective on LOVE changed. Love morphed into this sacrificial choice. Gone were the butterflies and tweeting birds; and smack dab in-front of me, was the reality of it. God is love; therefore, what does that mean? When I looked at scripture, I saw the examples HE lived out for me: I saw, that while I was still a filthy sinner, HE chose to love me. That HE chose to leave HIS heavenly home for me. That HE laid down HIS life for me. That HE offers the gift of forgiveness and salvation and eternity with HIM, in exchange for faith. Love, the way HE displayed it in scripture, is very one-sided. Not at all like the movies! It’s the freaking opposite! HE’s giving, we’re taking. Mind-blown.
As a result, for years after becoming a believer … due to circumstances beyond my control, I tried, to live displaying the right understanding of love. In this flawed flesh, with HIS help I really did try to love the way HE loves, and you know what, it broke my freaking heart. It was devastating. It was, the 1980’s “Love stinks”… kind of stinking. Un-reciprocated sacrificial love is like a freaking prison sentence, you give… they take, and you’re left vacant and hollow. Good times.
I don’t know how HE does it. How HE chooses to love us that way… I tried with 1 human and it almost broke me.
I can remember dating my now husband and being convinced that I did not want love. Nope! I mean understanding love the way God displayed love is gut-wrenching; who’d want that? You can ask my husband, BTW, I had all kinds of silly rules. But even then, my understanding of love had to be refined. I went from fake movie love, to sacrificial love but had yet to experience the kind of love that I also read about in scripture. That, Song of Solomon kind-of love. The love that says, I am my beloved’s and my beloved in mine. I hadn’t experienced that in my skin, at that time. I didn’t really understand that what I was pushing away was actually what I always wanted.
So now, my understanding of love is this: LOVE casts out all fear. LOVE is super patient and it’s kind, it doesn’t ever envy, it isn’t a sore winner and rubs your wrong-doings in your face, LOVE isn’t rude, or pompous, it’s not pretentious, it thrives in truth… LOVE doesn’t have to win every freaking fight, it doesn’t enjoy it when your person falters, it corrects us when we mess up, and calls us out when we are being buttholes. LOVE believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things and best part is, it never ends. Yes, I paraphrased 1 Corinthians 13:4-8. But it’s true. See that sacrificial love when it goes both ways, is pretty awesome. I can see now why marriage (when rightly focused) honors God. It really does put on display the relationship HE wants with HIS church, with HIS bride.
But… I’m married to someone who knows what love really is, so it’s easier. Not easy, but easier.
Happy Time of the Valen to all of you. May you love rightly, and be loved rightly.