Love Is....

Love. It’s easy to show love to someone when you are “feeling” it. When you first meet and everything feels magical … it’s easy to love.  But as the years go by, and you get to know your love more intimately, you realize love is a much deeper feeling. It’s a much deeper choice.

You choose to love when your spouse smells from working out in the yard or hasn’t shaved all weekend. You choose to love when they are throwing up from a 24 hr bug.  You choose to love when you are grumpy, irritated, or annoyed by your significant other.

My husband has shown me what true love is. He has loved me in ways and in times that have deeply touched my heart. My husband has showed me how much he loves me by going out walking in our neighborhood; calling, and looking for our indoor cat who had slipped out and gone missing. He doesn’t like cats, particularly. So him taking the time and effort to try and find something that was dear to me, showed me how much he loved me.

My husband knows how cold I get. So if he is in bed before me, he will lay on my side and warm it up for me, so that when I come to bed, it’s all warm. Now, that’s love.

Love is more than a good feeling when everything is going well and you both think the world of one another. It shows up in the middle of a tragedy, when you are bone-tired, and when you have the plain-as-day choice to not “feel” loving. That’s when true love shows how selfless, kind, generous, joyful, patient, and thoughtful it can be.

My husband is so good at loving me. He’s a great teacher. I learn from him often, how to reach out and think of someone else and not yourself. I am blessed.

I pray, that you too, can have a great teacher for what love is. If you don’t, you can teach yourself by modeling it and showing it – even when you aren’t quite feeling it.  Make the choice to love your husband (or wife) on the days and in the moments where you won’t get anything back for yourself. There IS no greater gift, than to give the gift of love. It will come back to you tenfold.