Believing the Lie: Love
Have you ever believed a lie for so long, that it felt more reliable than the truth ever did? I know I have. I feel this way about what I thought love was.
I have been thinking a lot lately about how well my husband loves me and my kiddos. Probably because of Father's Day this past weekend because he is such an amazing dad! We have joked for a long time that he is an amazing dad and an ok husband, but he is pretty great at both. He has always loved me well. Why are we so enthralled with this idea that romantic love has to be big and showy? Like the peacocks at the zoo trying to attract a mate? I think that as young people we aren't taught how to identify it properly. We sit in theaters, and we watch the lust of physical attraction unfold and we label it love. We see big gestures with fields full of flowers, and dates with plane rides to exotic locations, which seem so romantic, but are they? Or are they more like that peacock strutting around with his feathers simply trying to impress a female? Flattery and extravagant dates can be fun, but I want to teach my girls what real day in day out agape love looks like. I think it looks a little more quiet, a little more steady a little more like this.
I want my girls and I want you to know down to your very soul that real love looks and acts a little differently than what we have been marketed by Hollywood. I want you to trust the truth of the quiet love that shows up for you daily, not the promise of this elusive marketed love. I try to point this out to my kids by saying things like, "I know that your dad loves me because anytime I ask him for help with something he does it, and not begrudgingly. He just quietly gets started unclogging the drain, or changing the air filter, or mowing my walking trail. But you know what, he loves you too because he will stop working to play with you. He can't always stop what he is doing but he almost always does." He isn't much for showy love. But he is currently building me a house. Every single day, he wakes up and makes the short walk across the field from our barn to the new house, and he works until he can't work anymore, because he knows that that house is my dream. My dream is to have a house that I can utilize to practice hospitality, he knows this so he is literally busy building my dream for me. I hate how easy it is for me to overlook this.
I asked him a while back, "How come you never have an opinion on what we do or where we eat?" His response gave me a completely new perspective of our entire life together. Y'all it floored me, opened my eyes and made me really think about all the ways he already loves me so well. I guess honestly it may even be the actual starting point for all of my thoughts in this post. He said. "I just want to do what makes you happy, I always want to do what makes you happy." Y'all, that is love. He probably cares a little where we eat. He probably cares a lot when I make plans that mess with his routine, but he is willing to do any and all of that because he loves me well. It is unlike anything that I was ever taught love looked like. It is biblical love. Why is the truth about love, that "it is patient and kind, it does not boast; it is not rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but delights in the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things (1 Corinthians 13:4-7)", so much harder to trust than the lie we have been told by Hollywood and the world?
Jesus loved so well, with quiet patience. He showed up, the mere fact that he came to earth proves his love for us, but the cross is the picture of the greatest love of all. He laid down his life, he went of his own will, he wasn't dragged kicking and screaming to the cross, he carried it through the streets as he walked to the site where he knew he would give his life as a payment for our sin debt. A debt that we could not pay. I have had people pay for me sometimes, they will buy me something small, something that I would be able to afford like a coffee or a meal, and I am thankful. But to pay off a debt that I have no possible way of paying back? That is a hard pill to swallow. I am beyond grateful.
I pray that we would appreciate the extravagant gestures when they happen, but that they wouldn't be the expectation, because they are the exception. We need to take the time to teach our kids and ourselves to take time to see the steady consistent everyday kind of love. The quiet and patient kind of love not rude or boastful not irritable or resentful but delighting in truth kind of love. That is the kind of love that I want for my kids when the time comes. That is the kind of love I pray for you as well. But, if we don't know to look for it we may very well see flattery as love and wind up very disappointed in time. I hope that you know you are worthy of real love. Steady consistent and sacrificial. I hope that you learn how to recognize it and that you set your standards high enough to wind up with it. I don't buy the lie that "you can't help who you fall in love with", you can be on the lookout for the type of person that you want to be with. Emotions are fickle and they will lie to you if not measured up against truth. When we let our emotions lead us without checking them against biblical truth, we end up in more of a mess. We should never just follow our heart, we should always follow God. Our emotions are good and valuable, but not the MOST valuable, not more valuable than truth.
I am trying to teach my kids that they can be looking for certain character traits, in their future spouses. and how to be on the lookout for those traits in people. It is a bid deal to decide who you want to be tied to for the rest of your life with in marriage. It is unwise for us to only base this decision on an emotion. We need a more solid foundation than that. I want them to find someone who follows God, who is kind, who is truthful, and they have their own lists too. I love this quote from Coco Chanel, but we say it with a twist at our house, because my girls are still not in heels. We tell them to keep their head, standards and ponytails high.
I hope that you know that you are loved so very much, and it was proven at the cross.
Love, Jenn
Comments
Post a Comment