What is love? What’s real about it? Is love that ooey-gooey feeling you get when you first meet that special guy? Is it the sparks that fly as you sit close together? Is it that unbridled enthusiasm you feel when he asks you to marry him or the overwhelming excitement of walking down the aisle to meet him?
Real love is all that and more. In order to stand the test of time, it must be rooted and grounded in the love God has for us. We love others because God first loved us (see 1 John 4:19). This is the only way we can understand what real, unconditional love is all about, because throughout the life of a marriage relationship, that will be tested in plenty of ways.
When It Falls Apart
Real love that can only come from God is forgiving him when he forgets to take out the trash for the fourth week in a row or promises to pay the electric bill but forgets to setup the online bill pay, and you come home to a dark house.
Real love is picking up his dirty socks while he tries to take a shower without getting your lingerie (which is hanging all over the bathroom) wet. It’s sleepless nights before and after the babies come. It’s both of you working 40 hours a week, raising a couple of kids and trying to get everything done at the same time
Real love is going the extra mile even when you feel there is no extra mile left in you. It’s understanding when he forgets to pick up the kids from school because this was the evening of your yoga class. It’s him understanding when you forget to get coffee and bagels for breakfast when you text him specifically to ask what he needs from the grocery store.
What Real Love Is
Real love is patient, sometimes (see 1 Cor. 13:4). It’s kind, if you’ve gotten sleep the night before. It’s not jealous when you find out the girl from the office he went to lunch with is his supervisor, weighs 50 pounds more than you do and is 10 years older. When you get your master’s degree before him, love doesn’t rub his nose in it.
Real love doesn’t demand he go to the chick flick with you. It doesn’t throw his clothes out on the lawn because he came home at midnight after hanging out with the guys. It also doesn’t remember how many other times that has happened.
Real love lifts up the times he has told you the truth even if it hurt. Real love never gives up on him, and his real love never gives up on you. Real love continues to have faith in both of you. Real love always has hope that commitment and passion will win. Real love endures everything, even endless bouts of the flu passed back and forth like ping-pong balls.
How God’s Love Works
God’s love is the only real love we know. Every time we show love, we reveal His love. God’s love is what takes us through every stage of life from new and budding sparks to tried-and-true, passionate love. It believes that whatever happens in this life, real, extreme and undying love, when based in the Word of God and mutual respect for each other as people of faith, love and hope, will last forever.
No matter how much we love one another in our human strength and no matter what level of commitment we have, we cannot love unconditionally without God’s real. Unconditional love flowing through us.
We live to be identified as lovers of God. We also know with confidence God’s love for us is unending and unfailing (see Ps. 13:5).
There is nothing in the universe with the power to separate us from God’s love. I’m convinced that his love will triumph over death, life’s troubles, fallen angels, or dark rulers in the heavens. There is nothing in our present or future circumstances that can weaken his love. There is no power above us or beneath us—no power that could ever be found in the universe that can distance us from God’s passionate love, which is lavished upon us through our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One! (Rom. 8:38-39, TPT). {eoa}
Teresa Shields Parker is the author of seven books, all available on Amazon. Her latest book, Sweet Hunger: Developing an Appetite for God, is available now, and Sweet Grace: How I Lost 250 Pounds is the No. 1 Christian weight-loss memoir. She is also a writing and weight-loss coach, blogger, speaker, wife and mother. Visit her online at TeresaShieldsParker.com to find her books, coaching programs and free gifts.
This article originally appeared at teresashieldsparker.com.
Janet Perez Eckles 
Shawn Akers 
Abby Trivett