What Is Love? Loving When It's Hard.

 

I want to start by saying this has been one of the most straining weeks my husband and I have experienced in a while. As many know, my husband's father nearly passed away this week. He has been sick for a few weeks. My husband had a feeling, prompted by the Holy Spirit, that he needed to get his dad to the hospital on Sunday evening. His dad had a doctor's appointment for Tuesday, but he felt like it needed to be right away. He was admitted into the hospital, and by Wednesday, his dad had sepsis. The doctors gave his dad eight hours to live. We watched his pulse and blood pressure plummet and waited for the inevitable. Meanwhile, we prayed that God would move. A miracle occurred, and he began to improve. He has been taken off the ventilator and is breathing on his own with a steady blood pressure. During all of this, my husband and I celebrated our 27th anniversary. Neither of us had hardly any sleep the first 24 hours. My husband only had 3 hours of sleep for 72 hours, so as you might imagine, celebrating an anniversary was not at the top of our list. We exchanged some thoughtful gifts that morning, gave each other kisses, and went back to the chaos. If my love for my husband is built on what he does for me, then I might have been upset. But that's not love. True love is making a commitment that through the good times and the bad times, in sickness and in health, I'm there for you. My love doesn't alter based on things going good or bad. Marriage is hard. It is meant to represent our relationship with God. (The Bible references us as the bride of Christ.)  When we commit to Jesus, we make the same commitment as a bride on her wedding day. We chose to commit to following Jesus through the good times and the bad. Our love isn't based on what God gives us. Don't get me wrong. We love when He surprises us with meeting our needs and sometimes wants, but our love can't be based on that alone. Otherwise, the early Christians and many Christians currently in the world who are persecuted would give up as soon as it gets hard. Our Christ commitment is based on our overwhelming love for Him because He paid the ultimate price for our freedom. He died on the cross and gave His life to cover our sins and make a way to God. That sacrifice makes Him worthy of love and a forever commitment. Marriage takes this concept and says that I choose to love you when I don't always like what you're doing because Jesus loves me when He doesn't always like what I'm doing. I want to meet your needs because I am committed to being there for you. It's not just about my needs. Our model is Jesus. Are we perfect? No, but our goal is to strive to love our mate as Jesus loves us.

Have a great week high-heeled warriors!

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