Fruit of the Spirit - Love
“Love” is such an overused word of an action, that is so underutilized. So many people I see in therapy say that, though things are rough, at times, they do love their spouse. Yet, they proceed to tell me about all the horrible things that they say and do to each other: yelling, screaming, call each other mean and nasty names, manipulating, neglecting, and even abusing. So many people equate “love” with a feeling of happiness, and when they are not happy, or their spouse is not happy with them, they feel like their love is dying or dead. After a while of the behaviors above, it actually does die.
However, love is a choice. It is a choice to commit to someone else through good times and bad, times of good health and times of sickness, times of plenty and the times of poverty, until death. Love calls us to make the choice every day to work at our marriage when things are rough, and to do it sacrificially and generously rather than through selfishness and demands. A choice to die to ourselves for the good of our spouse.
Love is an action. It is doing things for my spouse because they need it done, not because I feel like it or because I get something in return. Ultimately, it is to love another for the sake of the other. We also need to let go of our need to “fix everything for our spouse so they can get back to happy.” Many times, love calls us to walk with our spouse as they suffer their own ‘cross.’
Love costs us something. In order to give to another person, it must cost me something: time, attention, action, comfort, pride. To love another person calls us to sacrifice some part of ourselves in order to fill up something inside of them. This is why, in marriage, it has to be a two-way street. If not, one or both spouses will become completely depleted. But if we both are actively feeding each other, we will discover that those are the times when we become truly filled with love and deeply connected. To quote from the musical Les Misérables, “To love another person is to see the face of God.”
ACTION STEP: This week, look for ways to help your spouse carry their daily ‘crosses’ and pray for the grace to do it with joy.