You might know Lisa personally from her participation in various Christian Facebook groups. Some are set up to be public spaces where we can all commune, pray, and fill up our souls with the Holy Spirit virtually, while others are private communities for more interpersonal conversations about things like our struggles, etc.
If we haven't crossed paths in one of these Facebook groups, no worries...we sometimes bring the conversation here to our blog to engage with you on important, fun, or inspirational discourse. The most recent Facebook group conversation we took part in is from a woman who asked a very simple question, but it has a complex answer: "What is love?" This question was specifically asked in the context of marriage.
Below is what we consider a small part of the answer to what love is. Enjoy and please share your thoughts about love in the comments below. We're looking forward to hearing from you!
Love is giving to your spouse before even thinking of yourself, let alone acting for yourself first. It’s treating your life partner like the prince or princess they are. It’s paying attention to those little things he/she likes or prefers. It’s knowing that your partner is truly your best friend. You can’t imagine life without him/her.
Love is being a witness to their life and vice versa...sharing in all of the prayers, doubts, worries, wonderful times, memory making, and experiences of a lifetime.
Let's go over a couple of personal examples from our marriage. One of us does not like when the seat is left reclined in the car when a passenger exits. It doesn’t matter whose car, this is something that is, what you could consider, a pet peeve. The passenger seat left reclined doesn’t bother the other of us in the least (and believe us, there are plenty of other things that are pet peeves between us).
Out of love and respect, we make sure that if one of the boys is in the car and reclines the seat while in the vehicle, we simply make sure it goes back up when they get out. This small act shows our spouse that they matter, and what matters to them matters, even though we don’t agree with it.
Here's another small token of love that makes a big impact on our heart, soul, and emotional/mental wellbeing: taking the time to pick out a meaningful greeting card for each holiday. The truth is, one of us thinks buying greeting cards is a waste of time and money, while the other absolutely loves receiving and reading. So much so, that we save all of our greeting cards and read through them every so often to reminisce.
As we've all heard before, "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." I Corinthians 13:4-7
We'd love to leave you with our final thought...
Love is knowing your life, heart, soul are truly blessed because your husband/wife is with you. To us, this is the meaning of true love.