The concept grabbed onto my heart and wouldn't let go.
I encourage you to take a minute and click over to read it. Just click here.
The author of the article, Gary Thomas, posed the question: Will you love only because? Or are you willing to love anyway?
So often in our marriage we love because. That's usually the way it is for me. My husband is incredible. He is loving, creative, dedicated, loyal, gentle, gentlmanly, extremely hot, and has a Latino accent that just makes me beg for mercy. He's pretty much the epitome of a Latin Lover. My Latin Lover.
He regularly does things like make me hot soup in bed when I'm sick or bring home a bottle of wine for date night. He just is great at romancing me in general. In fact just last night, after our son was in bed and our date night had started, he ordered me to put on my most comfy (aka old) pajamas, sit in our office, immerse myself in searching online for my new laptop (which I am over the top excited about) and to not even think about peeking out or coming downstairs. Once I was allowed downstairs... well, he completely blew me away.
The room was glowing by the fire-light and candles threw shadows across the room. Soft romantic music was playing. The massage table (my husband studied massage therapy) was in the middle of the room and a wine bottle was on a low table. He kissed me softly, led me to sit down, served me wine and washed my feet. While I sipped and marveled at what I possibly could have done to deserve this treatment (uh yeah, nothing) he brushed my hair. All this before the massage.
Because love, on evenings like this, is really easy for me to grasp onto.
But it's not always.
Like any couple, we have our demons, and life is not roses, sunshine, glasses of wine and a massage every day of the year.
There are plenty of days when because love has totally lost its place in our home and our hearts. That's when anyway love is really tough for me. As we wade through the thick stuff of our lives and get irritable with eachother... on the days when we snap and pick at each other... when the dishes pile up, the laundry is exploding all over the room, tempers are short and patience wears thin... anyway love is most important, but most difficult to attain.
I am convicted tonight of all nights - while my husband and I enjoy a peak in our marriage - that anyway love is what Jesus referred to when he said in Mark 12:30-31
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."Whenever I read these verses, I think about my neighbor. You know, the guy who physically lives next door. Not my husband. When Alejandro's being ugly to me I don't think about loving him as myself. I don't think about, "How would I want him to treat me if I were doing what he's doing now." I don't think about the temper tantrums I throw over things I don't get and how Christ loved me anyway. I don't think about anyway love at that moment.
And this is something I desperately want to change about myself.
Not just because anyway love creates and cultives because love in our marriage, but because anyway love helps me to understand better the heart and passion of Christ as he died in agony on the Cross for you and I. That I think is the point of marriage. To help me understand Christ's heart for His bride.
It has often been said that marriage is not for our happiness but for our holiness. We fool ourselves when we tell ourselves that complete happiness and joy is attainable in our lives on this earth - be that in marriage, career, parenting, or anything else. It was a hard thing to swallow the day I realized that it will always be this hard. As long as I'm human and I'm here on this earth, it's not gonna get any easier. I pray I get a
I only have to take one day at a time and focus on Jesus' anyway love for me and giving that anyway love away to those around me - starting with my husband.
Starting. Now.