The Definition of Love

I’m a hopeless romantic. I’m the ridiculous maiden waiting for the knight in shining armour to rescue me. I expect love to be like in the fairy tales – ‘happily ever after’. It took me a long time to realise that the love of fairy tales and Hollywood bears little resemblance to the real thing.

Recently in church the teaching was on Ephesians 5 and the responsibility of husbands to love their wives. The speaker had three wives get up and tell how their husbands showed love. DH leaned over to me and whispered that it was just as well I wasn’t asked because I’d have nothing to tell. To prove him wrong (it doesn’t happen often!) I went home and wrote down some of the ways he shows me love:

* Going for walks, talking and holding hands;

* Being my best friend. I can tell him anything and I know I can trust him not to judge or blab to others (and he’s even learnt when I need him just to listen and not give advice);

* Cuddling me all night long even if it means he doesn’t sleep well;

* Telling me I’m beautiful and meaning it (if he keeps saying it one day I might end up believing it);

* Helping with tea (our evening meal) and other chores around the house;

* Rubbing my back or my legs when they’re aching;

* Wanting to do a perfect job on renovating our bathroom because he wants it to be fabulous for me (even if I’d settle for it just being finished);

* Doing things for our boys like picnics, camping trips, driving lessons, staying up half the night icing birthday cakes;

* Remembering anniversaries and birthdays;

* Wanting me to look nice and have nice clothes (even if I don’t care that much about clothes);

* Text messages during the day;

* Making me go to the doctor because he’s concerned about my health even though he puts off going himself;

* Giving me a cuddle when I’m being a grump;

* Ringing me during the day when I have the day off just because he wants to hear my voice;

* Staying up most of the night looking for a small needle that I’d dropped so that I wouldn’t have to worry about someone sitting on it during Bible Study the next day (and not getting angry with me over it);

* Dealing with an overflowing sewer (which used to happen regularly during heavy rain);

* Driving over to pick up our boys from University and then taking them back again after the weekend;

* Getting up in the night to sick kids;

* Praying for our kids;

* Encouraging me to be a better person even when I’m inclined to be the opposite;

* Putting up with me;

* Backing me up in front of our boys;

* For years doing the dishes every night so that I could study;

* Being ready to forgive;

* Considering my opinions and views;

* Remembering when I’ve got something on that I’m dreading and praying for me;

* Pruning my roses even though when he planted them he was emphatic that he was going to have nothing more to do with them since I was the one that wanted roses and not him;

* Wanting to do things that will please me (even if it means we never make up our mind what to do on a given day);

* Giving me that special smile of his reserved just for those he loves best;

* And there are probably many more that I could think of if I took the time but that’s a good start.

Sometimes we're so busy searching for happiness and love that we miss it when it's right there under our nose! This year for our wedding anniversary I wrote these words inside a card:

There are times when during the busyness of life, the paying of bills, the drudgery of housework, the monotony of day-to-day living, the trials of disciplining and guiding a family to adulthood, the sameness of employment, that happiness seems like an elusive dream – one impossible to attain.

But then there comes those moments when we sit side by side and applaud proudly as our son walks across the stage to receive his prize, or smile indulgently as a child talks excitedly about the one that got away, or share a smile over our granddaughter’s latest antic, or steal away for an ice-cream while the kids watch TV, or curl up next to each other late at night and I know then that this is happiness … this is love …

1 Corinthians 13 tells us more about love than any fairytale or Hollywood romance – it shows the difference between the real gem and the counterfeit:

Love suffers long and is kind;
love does not envy;
love does not parade itself,
is not puffed up;
does not behave rudely,
does not seek its own,
is not provoked,
thinks no evil;
does not rejoice in iniquity,
but rejoices in the truth;
bears all things,
believes all things,
hopes all things,
endures all things.
Love
never
fails.

(vv. 4-8a, NKJV).

This then is true love and how we are to love.