20 Jan Love in a broken world.
You know that movie where girl meets boy; boy falls in love; boy chases girl; wins girl; there is a happy celebration (also sometimes known as a wedding); there is a hot, steamy, passionate, honeymoon; and then the happy couple comes home; they fight about bills; they get their feelings hurt because someone misses dinner; or someone is too demanding; and they fight; then they have to compromise; sometimes they ignore one another because their pride just needs to swell and heal; and then the movie ends…?
Oh. You haven’t heard of that one either?
That’s because even Steven Spielberg, accompanied with the musical talents of Hans Zimmerman couldn’t make that baby` sell.
Ever.
You know why? …because it’s not pretty. We like things to end tied neatly into a bow, stir in a lot of sappy happiness and you’ve got a box office hit.
To all my pre-teen friends…and my older ones who are still in denial…life is not a romantic comedy. Sometimes it might actually be more likened to a horror film than a chick-flick.
Love really is a battlefield.
Putting two broken people together and expecting things to run smoothly “till death do part” is, quite frankly, absurd and outrageous.
Side Note: I’m not trashing marriage and love. I am simply trashing the illusion that things will be simple, clean, and smooth as life moves forward. When is life ever simple?
If you’ve spent anytime at all on this blog then you know that I am preaching to the choir.
Total honesty. I have said (on more than one occasion): “Essentially I’m just trying to get everything out on the table now, cover all our bases, and ‘fix’ our issues so that when we get married everything will be perfect and easy.”…till death do us part.
(God bless the boy…he is the macaroni to my cheese, the calm to my crazy, and the love that keeps me sane. Ask him how he stays sane dealing with me all the time…I couldn’t tell you.)
So I have said the previously quoted statement begrudgingly followed with the fact that I know it is completely unrealistic. But here’s the thing…I have actually tried to do just that, knowing it is impossible. Wouldn’t that be nice to have a perfect, bump-free marriage? Wouldn’t it be nice to never worry about disagreeing or fighting over minute or huge things?
…Sure.
The problem: I fight with myself on almost a daily basis! Our human nature is not on our side.
“The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.”
[Galatians 5:19-21]
Rage. Selfish ambition. Discord. Hatred. Envy. Idolatry. Jealousy.
That is what we are prone to.
(Can we add to school curriculum a class on the realities of marriage and love? I think it would significantly lower our divorce rate…just sayin’.)
Love is great. Marriage is great. But it’s not a walk in the park.
Marriage: the joining of two unique, opinionated, loving, and broken people to live under the same roof, to solve problems in light of three opinions instead of two (we’re including God in the mix here, people, come on), to move forward in life, make tough decisions, and to face the inevitable crap of life. That’s hard.
But it is beautiful when done.
After over hearing some family members passive aggressively cut one another over the holidays the boy leaned over and whispered, “can we just always be nice to each other, please?”
Yes, please. Sign me up for that.
Can consideration, compassion, sympathy, kindness, warmth, and love permeate a marriage despite the highs and the lows? …I choose to believe so (even in light of everything aforementioned).
Now. Before you go discrediting me because the love of my life isn’t living under my roof yet, there is no ring on my finger, and vows yet to be said. Let me tell you…we’ve been seven years in the making. It has been no cake walk. We’ve thrown in the towel. We’ve walked away for a minute. We’ve survived two cities. One high school. Mind-numbing, life-sucking fear has overpowered us. Addiction to self, pride, fear, and other things has brought us down. We’ve watched love ones go down in flames. We’ve seen it not work lots of times. And maybe hardest of all….we’ve grown up together. Together.
He’s loved me ten thousand times when I’ve been impossible to love.
And I’ve done the same for him.
“You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.”
[Galatians 5:13-15, my italics]
“For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.”
[2 Timothy 1:7]
(Can someone engrave this on my corpus callosum, please?)
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.”
[Galatians 5:22-26]
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
[Philippians 4: 6-7, my italics]
You know what I think? I think that this wasn’t about you at all. Sure, maybe you needed to know that any lies you believe about love or marriage being a fairy tale…aren’t exactly true. Maybe you needed to know that they were true to an extent…but only after you’ve submitted, death to self, let go of pride, selfish ambition, the need to be right or understood in everything, and your great expectations. Maybe you needed to be reminded that the one you love is completely and utterly worth fighting for. Maybe you needed to know…it’s not abnormal to have a disagreement on your honeymoon, Maybe you didn’t.
Either way…I think that this wasn’t for you at all.
This was for me.
As the biggest commitment scaredy cat I know…I’m happy to say that I am no longer afraid of the fight. The fight for love. The fight for true joy. The fight for happiness. The fight for my heavenly Father. The fight for less of me and more of Him. The fight against faulty expectations. The fight for “not my way, but yours.” The fight of submission. The fight for a better reality than fairy tales. The fight for a love story penned by the greatest Lover known to man. The fight for surrender.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For God gave us a spirit
not of fear…
…but of love.
No Comments