Choosing Love

I feel like this post needs a preface.

These are just my thoughts on the subject. I am not an expert. I am no ones judge. I truly pray that this will be helpful and encouraging to someone out there or I would not be up this late typing. I am simply writing this because I need to hear it and I have seen too many of my friends hurting lately. I don't think that this could or would have been a fix for everything going on in their lives but I know that I have been truly grateful over the years to whoever it was that first told me that LOVE isn't a feeling. It's a choice.

1 Corinthians 13

The love chapter. The book every Christian turns to when proclaiming anything on the subject of love. I love this chapter. 13 verses that speak volumes. It is beautiful but at the same time, it is hard to see the beauty of it without seeing the hardship of it.

When I used to think of love, I would think of Valentine's Day. Hearts and flowers. Romance. Butterflies in your stomach. Getting dressed up to see someone and spending all your time away from them just thinking of them. Now when I think of love, I think of a choice. A choice you make to love every single day from the moment you say "I do."

I love my husband. It is a completely different love than 12 years ago. So many things have changed. Me, him, our lives together, kids, responsibilities. It isn't a bad change and each one of these things will change the way you love that person in ways you cannot expect. Still, love isn't the warm, fuzzy feeling that everyone thinks of when they hear the word. It is truly a choice. I wake up in the morning and I choose to love my husband. (my kids and life and all of that as well but you will see where this is going) Some days that choice is like breathing, you just do it. Other days I make that choice over and over and over. Especially when I open my bible and see that:

Verse 4: Love is Patient

I am NOT a patient person. I want you to hear me the first time. Do what I ask the first time. Do it now. But today I chose to love my husband. That means when I have repeated myself for the upteenth time and he asks me to repeat it again. I do it. And I don't roll my eyes, or sigh, or tell him he is deaf, even though he probably can't hear me. (By the way, I need to make better choices!)

Verse 4: Love is Kind

I was browsing the older posts of my little blog here and realized. I am kinda mean. Maybe a lot mean. While I am a lot better than I was I still have a ways to go. Being kind does not come naturally to me. I find myself rolling my eyes at Charles a lot. I mean, who does that?? ME! I think I need to look up the word kind in the dictionary.

Verse 4: It Does Not Envy

Not a problem! Or is it?
Does that mean when my hubs walks out the door and "escapes" to the land of grown ups and eats lunch at a restaurant with real silverware and tablecloths and has conversations using words that are longer than 3 letters I don't get to be jealous??? Tell him how unfair it is he gets to have a life at that job of his and I am stuck in the house with little people all day? Can I at least remind him of all the tedious and gross things I am stuck doing while he is away living out his dreams? NO! Hmmm....

**Let me just say that this whole choosing to LOVE someone isn't looking so good. It's hard. And honestly, if I were my husband, I would start to wonder if I was loved at all. If the bible says that love is these things and I am being shown the complete opposite how does that feel?**

Moving on.

Verse 4: It does not boast,
It is not proud.
Verse 5: It does not dishonor others,
It is not self-seeking

Self seeking? Like when I know my husband likes to have the house picked up and clean clothes to wear to work and I don't do it unless I want to go hang out with friends? Is it wrong to do those things simply to ease my guilt? Not because they are expected of me because I am a woman or because I am a stay at home mom. Simple because this is my family. My husband goes to work everyday and provides for us. Should I not too have a responsibility to him and my kids to get things done as a leader of our household?

Verse 5: It is not easily angered

Enough said there.

Verse 5: It keeps no record of wrongs

Like last week when he forgot to put a trash bag in the trash can even though I have asked him to do it every week and every week he forgets? Like that kind of record? Sure there are serious issues that come up in a marriage and they are repeated and need to be addressed. You work on it. Don't let someone's shortcomings build resentment.

Verse 6: Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

I once had someone tell me that they hoped one day they could confirm the suspicion of their husband cheating years in the past so they could justify leaving. It broke my heart. Of course I don't condone that behavior but how can you want to have it proved true at all? Do you allow your relationship to sit stagnant if that chance ever arises? Do you give up on any relationship you have built since because of something committed well before? I do not know what I would do in that situation exactly but I do know it would take a whole lot to get me to ever consider ending a marriage. Without some serious attempts with professional help at saving it and a release from God from the marriage I am in it for good.

Verse 7: It always protects,
always trusts,
always hopes,
always perseveres.

This in no way sounds good. Maybe it's because I read tons of books and have an overactive imagination I can't help but think: What kind of situation do I have to be in to be protecting, trusting, hoping and persevering? It honestly does not sound like something I want to go through.

I look at all of this and I am overwhelmed. Why on earth would I choose to love someone if it is going to be this hard? Look at all I have to put in to making this choice EVERY DAY. I was just here for the chocolates! But for me, when we go back to the beginning it is like this:

There is this guy. We met and fell in love. (Remember the whole warm, fuzzy love?) We get married, live together a while, have some kids, grow older, we have responsibilities and have to start making plans for our future as well as our kids. There are some really good times and I love him. There are some really bad times and I choose to love him. Despite how hard it might be or how many times that day I had to ask for forgiveness and decide again. I may not know exactly what you are going through but after almost 12 years I have gone through a lot. The choice is the same. I know that it is worth it to choose to love. When I look at my husband I know that in all the good and all the bad he has to wake up each morning and make a choice. He chooses to love me. And then I can truly understand.

1 Corinthians 13
4 Love is patient, love is kind.
It does not envy, it does not boast,
it is not proud.
5 It does not dishonor others,
it is not self-seeking,
it is not easily angered,
it keeps no record of wrongs.
6 Love does not delight in evil
but rejoices with the truth.
7 It always protects, always trusts,
always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails.