Four days after Valentine’s Day in 2006, my best friend’s husband died. At the time I was pregnant with my sweet boy Isaac. I remember sitting on my bed in disbelief. Heartbroken on her behalf, my tears continued for days.
She and I have walked a lot of life’s roads together. At best, her marriage was a bumpy part of the road that we traveled, but she loved her husband – and this unexpected event was terribly difficult to navigate. Through stress, emotional ups and downs, mental illness, physical illness, and financial difficulties, my friend had remained dedicated and faithful to her marriage, and to her husband.
Because… true love.
Nine years later the pain is still very real when Valentine’s Day approaches.
One of the things I learned from watching my friend is this: True love is not what you think. While many in our culture believe love is romance, and some equate it with a strong attraction, or even lust – I realized that none of that equals love. In fact, love can exist without those things.
You know what else I realized? When love is true, enough to survive the deep, hard, almost impossible stuff, it will make some people (who might not understand love) think you’re absolutely mad. True love is the opposite of what is humanly expected.
And what is love? That’s what I asked myself today when I thought of my friend attempting to survive this Valentine’s Day.
from 1 Corinthians 13, the message:
Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
I know there are a lot of other thoughts and factors when it comes to love; but this description of authentic, deep love is a really good place to start. It is the exact opposite of how I want to act most of the time. I’m a selfish sinner. I’m terribly human. My life could be an example of the antithesis of love. But, there’s hope for me : Jesus is the truest example of LOVE.
What I’m still learning is: I love best, when I receive and remember His love. I won’t love well unless I continually remember and live with His love at the center of my whole life.
He is unexpected. supernatural. sacrificial. He is LOVE.
daily portion 