What I've Learned about Love

 

In the year leading up to our vows, God has taught Jake and me some amazing things about love, each other, and Himself. It has been humbling and enriching to prepare our hearts for marriage. We have eagerly sought out wisdom from those around us: we went to premarital counseling at our church in Memphis, read multiple books together, were poured into by a bunch of veteran “marrieds,” and consulted the scripture together regularly. I feel like I’ve barely begun to scratch the surface, and continue to pray that God shape and bind us together.  

I thought I’d write down some of the most helpful truths I’ve learned. They are aiding me as I prepare to become a wife in 12 days, and hopefully can be of some use to others as well. 

Take pleasure in the other person’s pleasure

Relationships work with such beautiful balance when each person’s joy is rooted in the joy of their spouse. I’m delighted when I can make Jake laugh so hard he can’t breathe. He’s thankful for an opportunity to fix a situation that’s making me sad. Rather than constantly demanding that the other person meet our needs, we aim to meet our own needs by meeting the needs of the other person. This way, selfishness, entitlement, and demanding attitudes are smothered out, because we’re always pouring out, and we’re always full. (This isn’t something we do perfectly, but it’s something we always aim and pray for.) You can’t marry someone, expect them to always try to make you happy, and not be willing to do the same for them.  The best way to do that, I think, is to genuinely enjoy serving and bringing comfort to your spouse. 

Be more committed to your word than to your emotions

I take my vows deadly serious.  I’m about to make a promise to commit myself fully to Jake--body, mind, and soul-- exclusively, for the rest of my life, for better or for worse. I heard about some people who recently decided to switch the words in their vows from “till death do us part” to “till love runs out.” As in, “I’m in till I don’t feel like it anymore; till it’s inconvenient for me.” And honestly, that’s how marriage is treated these days: as an ego-centric, disposable, cheap game. 

There will be times within a marriage where you don’t feel romantic. Period. There may even come a time when you don’t feel like you’re in love. That’s when you have to make a choice: do I honor my word, or do I honor the way I feel? People throw their promises out the window when you don’t feel the way they did when they made them. They bend on the ever-changing sea of their emotions because they are not anchored in anything more stable. They throw away their lives and make null their word based on impulsive, fickle desire.

I believe true love doesn’t mean feeling flowery all the time. It means deep, unconditional commitment to another person, come what may.  It is my prayer that if the temptation to value my emotions over my commitment to my husband arise, I will be able to say, “Emotion is not my God. God is my God. Covenant is my life. I will keep my word.”

Be a student of your lover

This is such a good lesson: communicate your needs, and find out what your spouse’s needs are. I cannot read Jake’s mind. He is a different person than I am, who thinks differently, needs different things, and communicates in different ways. This seems incredibly obvious, but it’s something we forget. In order to love my husband well, I have to take time and energy to study him: find out how he receives love and what he needs. Likewise, I have to communicate to him clearly what I need from him. There is no “You have should have just known that I wanted to go on a fancy date at least once a month.” There was a lot of that in the beginning of Jake and my relationship. I realized, though, that that’s not fair. How would he know that? Giving direction on how we would like to be loved is an incredibly good idea. 

What helps with this is constant communication. If you talk about everything, share emotions often, keep no secrets, not only will it build trust, but it will clue you into what the other person needs. One of my favorite questions Jake and I often ask each other is, “How can I love you better?” The answers are always helpful.

Forgive, Forgive, Forgive.

Jesus taught it to us: we all need forgiveness, so why withhold it from others? Knowing that you’re going to need your spouse’s forgiveness and that you’re going to need forgive them is necessary when approaching marriage. Covering your relationship with grace is the best thing you can do for it. Patience, perseverance, peace. Be slow to get angry and quick to apologize. Take out the emotional garbage, and mend up what gets broken in each other. 

Laugh and pray together

Jake is my best friend. I just enjoy being with him—I rest in his presence. We talk about everything and nothing, and we laugh. We laugh a lot. Love requires hard work, yes, but that shouldn’t be all it is: love is joyous. It’s a celebration and a lifelong friendship with someone. When I have kids someday, I hope to set an example of marriage for them by loving their father with affection and joy. They will see us cuddling, laughing, and being affectionate. I want them to have a strong understanding that marriage is connected to joy, and desire it for themselves one day. 

Also, Jake has led us in this amazing daily practice of praying together every night. We have been doing this every night since we started dating—I literally have not slept one night in the past 3 years without first praying with him, even if it’s just on the phone. I can’t tell you how unifying and binding this is for us. We both humble ourselves before the God at the end of each day; invite him into our lives, communing with the one who holds us together.