Valuable Life Lessons from Dark Times: Learn What Love Is
The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell (C.S. Lewis).
Prologue
Are you living with or in dark times? Here are thirteen lessons I learned from living with darkness. Lesson #3--Learn what love is.
One of the Life's Great Questions
QUIZ TIME! What song …
>> … reached #1 in the UK singles chart in 1985?
>> … knocked Like a Virgin out of the Billboard Hot 100 in the same year?
>> … was a big hit in the US, the UK, Australia, Canada, Sweden, Ireland, and New Zealand?
>> … has been covered by artists as diverse as Mariah Carey, Kenny Chesney, and the New Jersey Mass Choir?
Did you guess I Wanna Know What Love Is by Journey? If so, you are RIGHT! Feels good to hear, huh?
Written out of band member Mick Jones' frustration with several tumultuous relationships and a search for a "perfect relationship", this power ballad asks a question which has rung through the halls of time, "How can I know what love is?"
At 23, I had love figured out! As an English and German major in college, I had read the greats--Shakespeare, Goethe, Lord Byron, Fried, the Brownings, and so on. The Sound of Music, Dirty Dancing, The Princess Bride, and Say Anything had programmed me with a vision for true love. As a Christian, I had read all the Bible said about love. I was steeped in the knowledge of love. My fiancée and I were in love and that was all we needed to make things work! Right! Right? Um ...
"Love … a temporary insanity curable by marriage" (Ambrose Bierce)
No. The answer is, "No." Being "in love" is not enough. Turns out that what I was NOT steeped n was life experience. I had missed out on the great philosopher, Mike Tyson, who said, "Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face." And truth be told, marriage alone was a punch in the face! As it happens, being "in love" does not fix the aggravation of getting kicked or sneezed on by one's spouse in the middle of the night. Being "in love" does not cover the minor irritations, aggravations, or complaints which inevitably arise when two people begin living together (Put your own toilet seat down. And what do you mean, I have to hang the toilet paper a certain way?). And being "in love" in no way covers the full-on frontal assault that is depression. I had a ways to go and I was going to have to dig up to hit rock bottom! Surviving meant learning what love is.
Four truths about love
Loving requires a firm foundation. There is an ethical and moral basis to loving well. Externally, our ethic was based on the value of God having called us together. We confirmed this through much prayer; with the advice of solid, wise friends and family who approved of our relationship; and time spent apart in order to gain the distance needed for a realistic evaluation of our relationship aside from our physical attraction to each other. Internally (morally), we recognized that we each helped the other become a better person, emotionally, spiritually, mentally, and intellectually. We understood that, while we wanted to be in each others' lives, we retained enough independence to be our own person.
Loving requires truth. This one is more difficult. Truth has at least three factors:
Did I know the truth in the first place? Joe Byerly wrote a post called "In the Light of the Day," where he talks about setting up for combat in the dark and thinking everything was perfect until … the sun came up and they could more clearly see the situation. When the shadow of depression highlighted the disparity between what I thought I knew and the reality on the ground, I was forced to ask if I had known the truth at all. Again, because we asked people, discerned God's will, had tons of conversations about real-life issues, and spent quality time together in a variety of different and difficult situations, I knew much of Jen's heart, thinking, and who she was as a person. Those became anchor points which I returned to time and again to remind myself of the truth about Jennifer and about us.
What did I think was true that was not? Well, first of all, my optimistic nature was not always going to carry the day. Second, my studies on human development had actually taken place in a vacuum and did not survive first contact in the field!
What is the actual truth? People are multi-faceted. I once read an opinion piece where the author argued that monogamy was an outdated practice. In her opinion, change is human nature. One would not, for instance, keep the same car for all of one's life. Why should humans do the same with a mate? I answered back that, unlike a mechanical vehicle, humans have layers (yes, like onions). Therefore, one cannot actually completely know another person because both are in a constant state of change and growth! That author was not impressed, but the truth remains, nevertheless. It will take a lifetime for me to know Jennifer completely and the same is true for Jennifer. As much as I pride myself on consistency, every day is a new day with me. Love requires opening the aperture enough to see the different facets as they unfold while also keeping a balanced view. It's far too easy to treat those we love as one-dimensional beings.
Loving is a daily choice. I often say that 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a is my least favorite section of the Christian Scriptures.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8 Love never fails.
Truth is, we must choose each and every day (and sometimes minute-by-minute) whether we will speak life into each other, or death. Speaking death into someone is easy and most people can do it in rapid-fire fashion:
"What is wrong with you?"
"Why can't you do that [insert word here] better?"
"Are you crazy?"
"Why did I marry you?"
"You are driving me crazy!"
"What did I do to deserve you?"
The list of death-dealing words goes on and on and on and on and on and love fails.
Life-giving words, on the other hand, are a daily choice and take much more effort:
"I'm really proud that you were able to get out of bed and get dressed today."
"Thank you for taking care of [insert noun here] so that I didn't have to."
"I see that you are not doing well today. How can I help?"
"We're going to get through this together."
"This happened today and I am having a problem with it. Can you help me understand what happened?"
"I love you."
Probably the hardest phrase in that 1 Corinthians passage is "[love] keeps no record of past wrongs." Reminding the other of every past slight, fault, misbehavior, etc., is just a knife to the heart. It's death by a thousand paper cuts. Choosing purposeful communication which addresses the most immediate incident and then moves on requires a choice and breathes life into the relationship and the person. And sometimes, choosing love means ripping up the invoice that conflict
Loving is work. There is no other way to say it. Infatuation can be a wonderful experience when every interaction is butterflies and rainbows. The burning fires of passion have driven men and women to conquer cities, overcome hardships, blow past barriers, and accomplish mighty things! But it's when that passion burns down to a bed of hot coals that the real work begins. Louis de Bernières in Corelli's Mandolin writes it best:
Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion, it is not the desire to mate every second minute of the day, it is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every cranny of your body. No, don’t blush, I am telling you some truths. That is just being “in love”, which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.
Love is a many-splendored thing
"I wanna know what love is ...". Great song with plaintive lyrics. What is love? Love, like the tagline for the game Othello, requires "A minute to learn; a lifetime to master." And mastery is only achieved while playing the long game of life. These four truths--building a firm foundation, seeking truth, making a daily choice, and putting in the work--may not guarantee success, but definitely make success more likely.
What truths have YOU learned about love?
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