What is love?

This weekend we had the pleasure of attending a marriage retreat hosted by our community church with a guest speaker, named Kelly Petre. I wanted to share a point that he made that was truly profound and really got me thinking about this thing that we call love.

Kelly said, "love is not a feeling first and foremost, but an act of will." He went on to explain that throughout the bible when we are asked to love it is commanded of us and you cannot possibly command a feeling, but you can command an action. After all, how can you feel love for your enemy with the snap of your fingers. That would be a tremendous feat, but to act in love towards your enemy is a choice that can be followed through on. He also mentioned that in centuries past most marriages were arranged marriages and that often these marriages worked and in time the husband and wife actually grew to feel love towards one another. His point was that we get to choose the person we love so of course we should be able to make that marriage work. And in fact, statistically most couples that are not truly happy in the early years of their marriages, if they stick it out, after five years they will become happy. You just have to do the work of love. How sad is it to think of the marriages that fail, because they couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel? I thought of an analogy of my own for mothers that helped me understand it better.I think it must be like breast feeding. Breastfeeding, while natural, does not come naturally. Both you and the baby have to learn how to make it work and in that process it hurts like hell. I remember having to tell my self 'don't squeeze her head. Don't squeeze her head.' When she was first latching on it hurt so bad I thought I was or months the pain just vanishes and it becomes this beautiful, priceless moment with your child. If I had quit, I would never have known what I was missing out on. Likewise, if marriage gets hard in those early years while you are trying to learn to love each other in a new way and quit, you'd never get to the beautiful and priceless moments.

This spurred my brain on further to think of the difference in my love for my daughter and my husband. I love them both an immeasurable amount, but they are a different kind of love. Falling in love with my husband was a process; a wonderful process. I prayed for a man to love me the way he does and that God would give me the partner that I was meant to have and he did. When he first showed up in my life I had that enormous girl crush and an attraction to him, but to say I loved him instantly would just be dramatic. I did not believe in love at first sight. I believed in the possibility of love at first sight. Over time, after countless words of encouragement, cards, flowers, gifts, dates, and acts of service, I had fallen in love with this man. I liked and still do like to serve and encourage him. It has become part of my being to love my husband. Some days it is easy and other days it is hard. And sometimes I have to love him with my actions even when I am not feeling loved by him and that is where the hard work comes in. It is safe to say that when I am finally humble enough to follow through on that it is well worth it. This is when I see so clearly and am reminded of the things that I love so much about him. He is so calm and reassuring when I need it most. He is affectionate, supportive, serving, funny, kind hearted, sentimental, and easy going. He shows me these things in his every day acts of love for me. It helps me to love him in return in a better more serving way.

My love for my daughter however is very different. I remember walking and praying for her very specifically, just as I had for my husband. We had already picked out a name for a girl before I was even pregnant. Just as God had hand picked us, I like to think I played a role in it with God to hand pick her. I was yearning to love her the way I believed children should be loved. I didn't grow up with a constant feed of this kind of unconditional love and it pushed me to want to love the way I think I and all children should have been loved.  I loved her before she was even here and then more when I felt her move inside me, more when I heard her cry and first saw her, and more and more every day. The thing about this love is that it was a feeling love first. She did nothing by way of actions but lay there and look beautiful. She was not writing me cards or words of encouragement or sending me flowers. I just loved her anyway and I served her letting my love grow and expecting nothing in return. I have been sad to see her get older missing that tiny baby I first fell in love with, but I have also fallen more and more in love with her and I didn't realize until this weekend hearing Kelly's words what specifically had done that. I have fallen more in love with her because she now can love me back with actions. She tells me she loves me and showers me with hugs and kisses. She is generally concerned with my well being and shares everything with me from snacks to toys to secrets. She now serves me too and I can see her heart more and more every day and the love between us just grows.

Love is so vast and can be incredibly difficult or simple depending on our view and understanding. I can only hope to remember to act in love allowing God to teach me more and more what love is supposed to be.