Love
Marriage ramble
Love is one of my favourite topics. Mainly because it's so broad, and it touches on so many planes and levels and layers of life, two because it is a good thing. God is love. He is the definition of it.
The dictionary says that it is
- A deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition of attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying oneness.
- A feeling of intense desire and attraction toward a person with whom one is disposed to make a pair; the emotion of sex and romance.
Hmmm. There's one aspect of it. It barely scrapes the surface! I prefer the definition in Corinthians, it's slightly more encompasing of EVERYTHING it means to me. I also love it because it's so poetic, almost Shakesperian, in style.
1 Corinthians 13
Love
1If I speak in the tongues[a] of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames,[b] but have not love, I gain nothing.
4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8Love never fails.
That's more like it. In these words you find a perfectly accurate description of God, and of Jesus his Son. They are Love. If I profess to feel love for another human being, be it fillial, parental or romantic, if I cannot measure up to this standard, this ideal of love, does it make my love any less? No, this is the yardstick by which we measure it.
The other point it makes is that without Love, which is needed for the soul, for the life-force within us, we are, in effect, empty shells. Think about it. If you had NO love in your life, literally, no friends, no family, no knowledge of God, would you still be here? I know I wouldn't. Life would be utterly pointless.
Honing in on romantic love, which is, in my opinion, the same as non-romantic love, the only difference being lust or passion (which are quite separate from Love, but what God has given us to define marriage relationships as different from other love relationships), Daily Wisdom had some interesting things to say, including this, in reference to the marriages and relationships we read about in the media:
That really hit the nail on the head for me when I read that. I've thought many times that I was "In love", but now I don't even talk to those people. And these are people who I thought held my world together. I thought if I lost them my world would end. And it did, for about two weeks, but then I picked myself up as if I'd never known them. The writer of this piece is right, love is a choice, and you have to work at it to make it grow. Love is your head and your heart having a rational discussion and both agreeing that "yes, my life is better with this person in it, let's make a go of showing them that. Every day. Even when I don't feel like it". Marriage is a solemn covenant, a promise between two people and God. It is unbreakable. It's not even a case of "choosing right", it's a case of "making it work".
In closing, my first love is God, and may He continue to be the apple of my eye. Should anyone else come along, and should my head and heart both decide that person will push me closer to God, will make me happy, will enrich my life, but by the same token that I can bring something to that person's life, make them happy and push them closer to God, why then, I might decide to love them :) And what a lucky man he will be... mostly anyway.