Is This Love?

Humor In Chaos

Searching for Joy Series

Is This Love? 

Any Gen X people remember the song, “Is This Love?” by Whitesnake? I was never a fan of the group, but I remember loving that song.

Who hasn’t asked that question at some point in their lives? Is this love? Is this what it looks like? Is this what I’ve been searching for all my life? Is this the one?

We don’t question that when it comes to other relationships: parent/child, owner/pet, close friends, etc. Why do we question the love of life partnerships so much?

I know why I did. Even though I didn’t know what it was at the time, it was the second time in my life I was in limerence, and I did recognize that those feelings were intense. Too intense to make a sound decision. Hence, I spent that time walking through the trees and the fields having deep and angry conversations with God, and how I got my tattoo on my back.

The problem with my questioning, and everyone questioning, is we do not have an adequate definition of love. As I tried pointing out in the previous chapter, even theologians struggle putting the correct verbiage to it so we can all understand the profoundness of love. Add on the social structure of the time, and confusion reigns. In the 1980s, Whitesnake was considered a source of wisdom. I write that tongue-in-cheek.

The all-time best definition comes from St. Thomas Aquinas when he said, “To love is to will the good of the other.”

Bears repeating: To will the good of the other. That encompasses so many questions. What is love? It is a feeling, an action, a choice, a spiritual state of being, all in one because it is willing the good of the other. To will something is to think it, hold it in your heart, choose it, ponder it, and take some sort of action to bring it to pass.

I remember the moment I knew I was in love with my husband to be. It was the summer before my junior year in high school. We met briefly before this and he did not like me at that time, but this day was oddly significant for me. That summer day, shortly before school started up again, he was in a basketball scrimmage. I was there to watch my boyfriend play. It’s a small school in a small town in outstate Minnesota. Our school was in the process of combining with another school from a neighboring town where he lived. I was supposedly watching my boyfriend, but I could not keep my eyes off my future husband. I tried. I kept thinking that those were the sexiest legs I had ever seen on a guy.

Mind you, this guy was practically an enemy of mine. The first time we briefly met, he hated me. Nonetheless, I knew it, in that moment, it was clear, that I was intensely attracted to him.

I was not happy. This was not in my plans. I had plans in place for my life that didn’t include getting serious with anyone, much less with the guy who growled at me at a prom dance the previous school year. Was this God having a laugh at my expense?

That year of school was challenging. We had two classes together and argued often. Contention can increase attraction. Opposites, and all that. Plus, I was dating a friend of his, and he was dating a couple of other girls off and on including a friend of mine.

During the school year, things changed, and we ended up becoming friends by the end of it. It wasn’t until the next summer when I learned he had a thing for me too. I don’t know if it was love for him yet, but it was limerence for me that grew into real love within a year.

We were married in our very early 20s and had our first child two and a half years later.

How do I know it was real love? Because we wanted what was best for each other. In our conversations, trying to make future plans, our goals were about the other. When we disagreed, it was usually because I wanted us to do what was best for him, and he wanted to do what was best for me, while still staying together. I have no idea when or why or how that ended for him, wanting what was best for me. I do know it was years before I found out. It never went away for me. I still want what is best for him.

The problem with love like that is that sometimes it hurts. Sometimes, oftentimes, there are deep sacrifices that are made. Sacrifice – a price is paid, sometimes a heavy price. If that heavy price isn’t addressed properly, resentment builds. And then a place is reached where one or both no longer want that type of love, corrupted by resentment. We got lost along the way and lost what was real.

This is where I point out why my marriage fell apart. He didn’t want that kind of love from me anymore. Fair enough. I had messed it up. He had messed it up. Neither of us was innocent. We messed it up for different reasons and different ways. He started counting the costs, and I had put him ahead of God in my heart. We both sinned. I worshiped another God, my husband; and, he succumbed to false pride. From there, walls of protection became walls of separation. He built walls, and I put on blinders of denial.

When he left, I worked to create a better home so maybe he would come back. Not the entire time. I took a couple of breaks. It was hard work, and I suffered from it some. My health wavered back and forth between remission and active lupus.

I needed the separation and divorce to happen slowly so I could go to God and say, “I did the best I could to preserve our marriage covenant with You.” However, my husband has free will, and his choice was to continue to move away. It took more than three years for the divorce to complete.

I am content, even joyful, that I can face God knowing I did the best I could. I loved as close to the way Jesus loves as I am able.

That does not mean I loved like Jesus does. He’s Jesus. I’m a mere mortal, loaded with flaws. I’m not even on the same train platform when it comes to love. I did do the best I could. In the end, the best I could do, what I pray was the best thing for him, was to let him go.

I attempted to move on to the love of friendship. That doesn’t seem to be going so well either. Maybe one day if he is ever able to forgive and accept forgiveness.

This entire experience, more than 30 years in the making, gave me an entirely new perspective on the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross. All he did for us, and we keep turning away from Him. All the things my now ex-husband and I did for each other, all the sacrifices we made, all the gifts, all the prayers we offered up on behalf of the other, and yet we turned away from each other. Wow.

Friends and family have asked me how it is I still love him after everything he did that hurt me. It is true that if our sins my ex and I committed against each other, the betrayals, yes, his would outweigh mine. How does that matter? How does measuring these sins matter now? They are done.

It isn’t that they don’t matter. They do. But they were not unforgiveable. We dealt with nearly unforgiveable sins from others over the years. No. What he did, what we did, did not meet that criteria. They were severe. They were not evil.

Who knows the cost better than I do? God. Who ultimately decides if he is worthy of grace and mercy? God. Who knows what is going to happen in the future and if he will one day ask God for forgiveness? God. In fact, maybe my ex already has. I don’t know.

These are not things for me to judge. I forgave him. I told him so. I even told him I still love him. Nevertheless, he remains turned away. His choice. Not mine.

I repeat, he turned away from God before he turned away from me. Our marriage was a marriage of three. We both stood before God and made those vows. And I do not know where he is in his journey with God today.

Peter denied Jesus three times. Jesus forgave him.

Jesus hung on that Cross and forgave all the people standing there who had a part in putting Him there. That includes all of us and our sins. He wasn’t hanging there with a scale to measure the weight of sins. He wasn’t keeping a tally on which ones were good enough for forgiveness and which were too heavy to bear. Amid that agony, He forgave. We only need to accept it and do go out into the world and do better.

What does Jesus want from us in return? He told us, specifically. He told us to love God and love our neighbors. He told us to be obedient to those two commands. He told us to love as He loved us. We can’t do it perfectly like He does, but we can try. We can persevere and do our best.

Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for more!

Sarah

Humor In Chaos

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