Learning to Love Like That
I sat curled up in our bed with tears just streaming down my face thinking, “How do we have a love like that?”
I had an awful cold. The bed around me was littered with used kleenex and cough drop wrappers.
I was home by myself, trying to sleep but every time I laid down, I couldn’t breathe because my sinuses would immediately close up.
I was miserable.
But as I scrolled through my instagram feed… between blowing my nose and sipping hot tea… I saw something from Fierce Marriage that grabbed my attention.
I clicked over to their profile and followed the link. Which lead me to this post and this video that made me cry.
I posted the video to my facebook profile saying, “saw this come across instagram today from Fierce Marriage… and I cried. I cried because it is sweet and I cried because it is true and because this is how God has called us to help and to love our spouse. and because in our marriage, in your marriage, there is weakness on both sides needing us to step up and just love.”
I want to love Jeremy that way.
A true love like that
Honestly, I don’t always love him like that. I don’t always love him through his weakness. Sometimes I distance myself or say mean things or accuse him wrongly or misjudge his motives.
Ugly… I know.
The harsh bring-on-the-tears reality is that my health could one day take me to the place that this woman finds herself in. The place where I need Jeremy like that. We don’t know where the disease of MS will take us, take me.
But beyond the obvious health implications of this short video clip, I saw a bigger truth.
In all marriages, my marriage, your marriage… both the husband and the wife have weaknesses. They can be blind to themselves, to each other. All marriages have a need for health in some way.
I want to love Jeremy through that process of health. I want to be in it with him. Stick with him. Help him. Bless him. Whether he knows it or not. Support him. I want to love him like that.
Always. No matter what. No matter his response or his circumstance, I want to love him like that, through every struggle and challenge.
Our marriage, to truly become what God has called it to be, needs us both to step up and love like that.
To work harder.
To support more.
To help even when no one sees.
To humble ourselves when we feel wronged.
To protect and guide and minister through each weakness. Every day.
We’ve come a long way in our years together.
We still have so far to go. New weaknesses and sicknesses and struggles will come that will force us to not just say our vows but to live them out loud ’til death do us part.
We must love like that.
I cried because I fail at it sometimes. often.
And I don’t want to fail. I want to thrive. I want our marriage to grow and strengthen through everything we face.
Marriages today must take the challenge, step up and love like that.
Put aside pride and thoughts of self and replace them with genuine, biblical, godly love.
A love like that.