Work has been pretty demanding. Alan and I have not had much time together these past couple months. So last Friday we planned a little in house date. But wouldn’t you know it, I got a terrible migraine, could barely finish my dinner, and couldn’t even keep my eyes open from the pain. I wasn’t much of a date. But my sweet husband set everything aside, told me to lie against his chest, and he rubbed my head. He massaged the parts of my head that were causing me the most pain until I fell asleep on him.
I woke up in the middle of the night thinking, wow, that is love. My husband just demonstrated Christ’s love to me tonight.
Media fills our minds with false illusions of what love is. Movies and books depict love to be a feeling or fondness that can fade. Oh and don’t worry, if you lose that feeling of love, then you can leave that person and find someone better.
The world really feeds us such a distorted view of what love truly is. If we are not meditating on Scripture, we may slip right under the influence of the world instead of the Truth of God’s Word.
Before Alan and I got married, our pastor and his wife had invited us over to dinner. At the time, I was still pretty new to the church while Alan had been attending and serving for a few years. The wife had prepared a really tasty Dominican meal. As we gathered around the table, I grew to be a little nervous. My Spanish wasn’t amazing, and I wanted to make a good impression on the pastors. We made small talk for a while. They asked about my story and how I arrived in the Dominican. Then the pastor skipped right to the deep stuff and asked us a probing question.
“What do you think love is?”
I pasued to let Alan answer first as my mind was trying to translate what I wanted to share before I opened my mouth.
Alan and I both ended up sharing the same idea that love wasn’t about us at all, but rather serving the other person and demonstrating Christ’s love to one another.
Luckily the pastor agreed, and I think he approved of me because he ended up marrying us and now I am a member of the church.
I could tell you all the things that I have learned about love since meeting my Alan, but I rather go straight to the source which is the Bible.When we dive into the Scriptures, we learn that it isn’t about us at all. True love is patient, kind, not prideful or arrogant, isn’t jealous, isn’t self seeking, it isn’t irritable, it keeps no record of wrongs, it rejoices in the truth. Love believes, hopes, and endures all things. Love never fails (1 Corinthians 13:4-8).
This is true love. Not the sweep you off your feet and fall in love in 4 days kind that the movies portray. This is love as God designed it. Love that lasts. Love that covers all wrongs (1 Peter 4:8). The kind of love that doesn’t give up when things are hard, but rather chooses to stay and fight for your person every single day.
This is the kind of love that led Jesus to die on the cross for us, and the kind of love we should aim to have. A selfless kind of love.
Journey to Dominican 