True Love

Not being able to sleep has its advantages. My husband is an incredibly brilliant man. He is smart, not just in the logical, technical and mechanical way, but he is emotionally intelligent and has an insight into the deeper meaning to life. The thing is, none of that matters, really, because if we weren’t equally balanced and meant for each other, it still wouldn’t work well. But we are seriously so compatible and healthy for each other.  We love and respect one another. We are best friends first. He is literally the first man that I have ever trusted and the only one that I allowed in. Before him, I thought I should always hold back something and have an escape plan; a way to guard my heart. And as if that weren’t enough, we are deeply in love. Still. I still feel all girly inside when he says something funny or acts like he is ‘gonna get me.’ If you knew me, THAT is a miracle in itself.

You might be saying, okay, what is the point? This is: My life has been Hell. Some of that Hell was outside of my control and done to me through my life. But most of it was caused by me either indirectly or by directly making horrible choices in my life. I was broken down and battered by the pain inflicted and the brainwashing and conditioning at an early age. I had distrusted and run from men, and reality, for most of my adult life. Because of that, I lived my life by impulse, to please me and not on the logical contemplation of cause and affect. When I look back, I cringe at the person that I was. Only God could love a person like that and I wasn’t even smart enough to believe that this included me. And to me, that is odd, because even before Tom, I could see the true heart of other broken people and who God meant them to be but I could never truly believe that of me.

By the time I met Tom for the second time, I was NEVER going to get married and stopped believing in real love. I was a true cynic. Tom is the first person in my life that has been emotionally intelligent and insightful. From the very beginning, we didn’t want to know who the other person used to be, what other people said or what we ‘did wrong’ before. In fact, he insisted on not knowing. His mentality was like mine: You are who you are with me. Your past mistakes don’t define you. I will make up my own mind. For the first time in my life, I didn’t get emotionally battered for something that happened ‘before.’ I didn’t have to pay for my sins over and over again.

In this world, when you find someone who loves you so completely, you will die for them. By being who he is with me, he is, in affect, creating the deepest desire in me to be my best self and I can’t help but love him even more. He feels the same. This man is so a part of who I am and who I continue to become. He is the only man that could ever settle me down and show me how to trust and be faithful to someone other than me.

So, to Tom, I am who I am with him, now, and whatever I did in my past, is past. He loves me just as I am. This is how God feels too! I think in this way, Tom’s love and faith in me, has helped me reconcile with God’s love for me. I think part of why we have difficulty wrapping our minds around this kind of love, God’s love, is because we have so few opportunities to experience this… from anyone, even our own families. I know those closest to us love to remind us of who we ‘were’ so we don’t think we are better than they think they are. The reality is, we don’t think we are any better, but we behave differently because we have salvation and Hope. That gift is followed by the desire to be better than we were.

The bottom line is, true love does exist. The reality is that you have to work on your brokenness first. Figuring out where your damage comes from and learning to change the way you look at others and yourself. Lean not to your own understanding but in Christ who strengthens you. Figure out what type of person you want and don’t want before you go shopping. If you don’t have a list, you will buy anything. Learn how to communicate who you are, what you want for your future and lovingly question them about the same. Ask them the right questions. Buy a book that tells you the “100 questions To Ask Before You Say I do.” It truly is a partnership and you get out what you put in. So build on being what God sees you to be. Finally, if he passes your inspection after an acceptable amount of time (1 year) then, before you marry, take a pre-marital class at your church to ensure you really are compatible in the major areas of life. Don’t just assume. Be in prayer, be equally yoked and do your research.