XIII
I learned something recently that I’m so thankful to have heard. I don’t know if I was supposed to have already known this…I’m late but hey, at least I made it to the party.
I wanted to share this with you in case you hadn’t heard it. It’s crazy that no one ever told me this, that I had never heard it anywhere. And if I hadn’t ever heard it who would I be? It actually changed the way I see my future, the way I want to be; it set me up for greater things.
Okay, maybe after reading that you may be expecting something huge and mind-blowing. It’s not that big (although it was for me), but sometimes things that seem small, even irrelevant, can have a huge impact.
This is about marriage, or at least a part of it.
Some may have rolled their eyes at the topic but bare with me! You won’t regret having heard (read) this.
There’s a married couple, and the wife asks her husband, “Why do you love me?” We all know what was expected from that question, to hear aspects about who she is and the way she does things. The husband knew what she wanted to hear, but he also knew that the answer to the question was something else.
He answered, “I love you because of my character”.
The wife was confused; aren’t we all with that answer?
He explained. “I love you because I love you. Because I love you. I have chosen to love you, so I do. Of course, I love many things about you, but that is not the reason why I do. I need you to understand that my love does not depend on how you are or the things that you do. You’ll change, we both change, hopefully in a growth type of way, but you need to be sure that I love you because it’s my job to do, it’s on me. That way you don’t have to be afraid, or try to keep my love, because you can’t lose it. I can’t control who you are or the things you do. What I can do is focus on what I do and how I love you, independently of the way you are and in an unconditional way. My focus is on how to love and serve you because I made that promise. And if you know that, and you do the same, and you love me because you do, then both of our needs will be met, and we will flow in serving each other. I love you because I love you.”
(For the record, the quotation marks aren’t something they really said, I kind of made up the story, just took the concept and illustrated it)
So opposite of what the world tells us, and so according to what the Lord does. If He loved us depending on what we do, man, we’d be long gone by now. But Christ’s love for His bride is unconditional, sacrificial, forgiving, relentless.
It’s about what you give, not what you get. And that’s with everyone.
-m
