I thought since this week could be consider the week of love (because Valentine's Day is this Saturday) that is what I would write about. I have been thinking a lot about how I have encountered love. I am so in love with my husband of six years. We have been together for almost 12 years and I love him more now than ever. Every year I wonder how I could love him more but yet it still happens. Love is such an interesting emotion and decision.
I say decision because I also believe love is a choice. When my husband married me he made a choice to love me no matter what and I did the same. This doesn't not mean that we have been happy all of our time together nor does it mean that I have even liked him all of the time, but it does me that I have never stopped loving him just because I didn't feel like it. We have been through many things and I do believe if we had not been committed to our decision then we would not be together now.
I remember when I was pregnant with our first child how concerned he seemed about everything I was doing. I became even more aware of this after she was born. When I was having heart problems and he had to call an ambulance, I had to finally look at him and ask him why he was so concerned now? (Meaning it was more than before we were married.) We both experienced difficulties with my health before but something had changed and I missed it somewhere along the way. He told me that it had changed, that he had more invested in me now. Wow, I didn't know I was an investment. I wasn't really sure how to take that. Did he mean that he wanted to make sure he was going to get paid his dividends or that he was concerned about his benefits? No, he told me that now that we were married and had a child together that he could not imagine life without me. He had invested more of himself and more of his heart into me.
This was a very foreign perspective for me because I really didn't see how I was something worth investing in. After all, he was a great guy and there are many more women out there that are more beautiful, smarter, more athletic, nicer, more patient, than me. He could be with who ever he wanted and maybe I am a bit bias but think that he wouldn't have any trouble finding someone else to love him. I never really understood why he choose me. I find it funny that after I shared this with him that he thought the same thing [about himself].
I have realized in the last couple years that when I see myself from my husbands perspective and my heavenly Father's perspective that I see love in a different light. I could never explain to my husband how much I love him. Sometimes I am overwhelmed and am brought to tears just thinking about it. Sometimes I feel like I can never get close enough to him but want to more and more. All throughout my day, I see glimpses of his love for me. In my children, my house, gifts, him desiring for me to stay at home, his calls, and the list goes on. I have realized that our marriage is also a glimpse (be it a very small glimpse) into how much God loves me.
I then think about how I feel for my husband, or my children, or even myself and I start to see what the Father sees. He loves me even more that any of those loves put together. He wants me to be close to him but he can't quite get close enough. He loves me so much he was willing to allow his only Son to die for me. I think I will never be able to grasp that. I realize that my love pales in comparison to his love. I would never think of allowing one of my children or my husband to die for someone that might not even care. Thus, the reason I desire to love him back as much as possible.
Somewhere along the line I realized that God has a lot invested in me. Much like my husband, but even more so. He does not care about how many times I go to church, how much I donate to charity, how many good things I do for others, etc. He just wants to love me and me to love him. After all he is God and he can do anything, he doesn't need me to do it, but he asks me too so that we can be together. He has put a lot into our relationship (the death of a Son) and just wants to be close to me and never let me go. Funny, I am starting to feel the same way. Just like my husband has taken time into loving me God wants me to do the same with Him.
I go to church, help others, read my Bible, etc, not out of an obligation, or out of guilt, or because it is the right thing to do. I do these things out of love for my God who loves me more than I can fathom. I love him more than life and want my every motive to be because of love. I used to think my God was someone who wanted me to follow the rules and tell people the right things to do or not do but the isn't it. He did not allow his Son to die because of the rules. He wants me and pursues me and chooses to love me even when I have not been the most lovable.
I think about it now and wonder how I could be more in love with my God, but I know each day it will grow as long as I chose for it to. When I look into my husband's face and see his love, his concern, his happiness, his sometimes disappointment, his silliness, I am seeing a glimpse of how God looks when he looks at me. Love is an amazingly beautiful gift from my Daddy in heaven.
And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts as you trust in him. May your roots go down deep into the soil of God's marvelous love. And may you have power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, how deep his love really is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you will never fully understand it. Then you will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God. -Ephesians 3: 17-19
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son to condemn the world but to save the world through him. -John 3:16-17
