Friday, January 31, 2014
Day 5: Transforming Love
Happy Friday! What does everyone have planned for the weekend? Superbowl parties? Justin and I are going to our Life Group Superbowl party (same thing as Community group, Shauna). And Monday we are leaving for our little pre Valentine's get away to Gatlinburg. WHOO HOO!
What a POWERFUL first paragraph in today's reading. It painted such a real picture of Jesus' road to the cross. The last sentence really spoke to me..." His motivation was you." Wow! That kind of love, unconditional, selfless love does not come naturally to us as humans. Our nature is to always set conditions and terms for love. This type of love is not fueled by emotions, feelings, moods, etc. It is the greatest type of love, yet the hardest type for us a people to give. I haven't quite gotten a handle on how to continuously love Justin unconditionally, 100% of the time. It's hard! It's what the phrase "labor of love" is all about! When I am hurting and he doesn't respond or comfort me in return I have had a habit of showing anger, bitterness, etc to express my hurt. I think that is exactly what Jennifer talks about when she says love your husband regardless of if he's earned it or deserves it. I am starting to learn, in my short 4 months of marriage that a lot of times what I am hurt by, Justin may not have intentionally done. We are still learning from each other. And we still have ALOT to learn. But we learn something new about each other each day and we continue to grow in our marriage and our walk with Christ each day.
" For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son..." John 3:16
Where can we find the strength and motivation to love your husband especially when he doesn't deserve it?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBrEdJwogPE
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I agree completely with you Trina. Unconditional love is one of the hardest things to accomplish. From a young age, I was taught that you have to work hard to "earn" anything. I guess I have put those same restraints in my marriage. However, I have realized that marriage itself is hard work. If it wasn't, then it wouldn't be worthwhile.
ReplyDeleteMichelle, I couldn't agree with you more about marriage being hard work.. and if it wasn't, then it wouldn't be worthwhile. So true!!
DeleteMichelle, I too agree that marriage wouldn't be worthwile if it wasn't hard work.
DeleteTrina, I highlighted that same profound statement about Christ's motivation to die on the cross was his love for us. Today's reading had me really visualizing all that Jesus went through on his journey to His death. It helped me to try to begin to grasp the power of His unconditional perfect love. I think you're absolutely right, Trina, in that for us as humans to grasp it and live it is difficult. If anything, today's reading further helped me and gave me another reason that I should be living for God and mirroring His love in my marriage.
ReplyDeleteOne of today's journal questions was asking how can you show your husband you love him unconditionally? I feel that telling my husband how much I love him more often was one way. What other ways did you ladies come up with?
Hope you all have a nice weekend! We plan to spend some time together as a family on Sunday during the Superbowl. We have a hectic busy day tomorrow, so we will welcome the down time on Sunday. :-)
Trista, one way that I feel I can show my husband unconditional love is to show him respect. For example, if we are talking and I become snappy or my tone of voice changes, he feels disrespected. Normally I don't even realize that I'm being snappy, so my lack of respect for him in that way is very unintentional.
DeleteJust like the rest of you, I found the first paragraph of today's reading so powerful. It's hard for me to believe that somebody would go through so much pain and suffering for me. This visual that Jennifer gave us will serve as my strength and motivation to love my husband even when I feel he doesn't deserve it. I know that I am not deserving of Christ's love, but he loves me unconditionally. I want to apply that same concept to my marriage.
ReplyDeleteTrista, one way I can show Justin unconditional love is to be slower to anger. This is really a trigger for a lot of our fights. I get angry and it does downhill from there. He and I are currently doing the Love Dare devotional every evening and we are praying together too. Tonight's reading was about being slower to anger and showing patience.
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad you and Justin are doing the Love Dare devotional. We did it a couple of years ago and loved it!
DeleteShauna, I loved what you said about how sometimes you aren't deserving of Christ's love. That helps me a lot to put things in perspective when I don't feel Justin has earned or deserved my love. Thanks for that reminder!
ReplyDeleteI was thinking...another motivating factor for me to love my husband unconditionally is to provide an example for our children. They need to see us model this type of love in our marriage.
ReplyDelete