I spent my childhood dreaming of the day I would fall in love and walk down the aisle to marry the man of my dreams. The idea of being loved and wanted by someone was always on my mind. Thoughts of being swept off my feet, being kissed in the rain, receiving spontaneous flowers and gifts, strolling along the beach hand-in-hand, being serenaded in the moonlight, dancing in the kitchen to the cascading sounds of Sinatra, and being the forever woman of someone’s dreams floated in and out of my subconscious both day and night. I filled myself with romantic comedies and romance novels dreaming of what it would be like to have a real life romance like that every day for the rest of my life. I would be the star of someone else’s life and vice versa, or so I thought…
You see, the problem with my thinking is that I didn’t really want someone else to be the star in my life. In my head, I assumed that my presence would ultimately be the undoing of my spouse to where all he would ever want day/night would be to watch me star in the movie of our marriage. I assumed that I was THE BEST GIFT that my marriage would ever receive. Of course, in my head I had no idea that my pattern of thinking was so extremely selfish. In my head, it all made complete sense. My line of thinking didn’t seem quite so selfish because I also wanted to love and care for my husband. I knew to some degree that my role as a wife would be to invest in my spouse, but at the end of the day I believed that I would still be the star.
Unfortunately, it has taken me years to come to a place where I realize that I in fact am not meant to be the one and only star in my marriage. Not only am I not to be the one and only star, but my intimacy (in every area) with my husband is not about me either. I wish someone would have told me this before I got married. I don’t know that I would have listened and/or fully understood, but if I could go back in time, I would sit down with my 24 year-old-self and have a long talk. I would look her in the eyes and tell her so many things. I would let her know that her value goes far beyond the feelings she arouses in her husband. I would let her know that she is loved far more than what her spouse, family, or friends could ever communicate. I would gently remind her that her marriage has so much more purpose than what she is going to receive from it. And, I would teach her about the greatest gifts of marriage – love.
In all of my yearnings to be wanted and loved, I had misunderstood what true love is. True love is not selfish, but some of the roots I planted in my marriage early on were completely self-centered. You see, I’ve learned that true love is beyond description. And as I’ve started to glimpse the beauty of true love, I have received the gifts it offers in return, and they are far more valuable than the self-seeking gifts I had been pining for during my years of singleness and early marriage.
The beauty of true love is that as I grow in my identity/knowledge of how loved I am by Love Himself, I am able to give and receive love in abundance. And, this love that I have found is passionate and fierce. It cannot be tamed. It is tenacious and wildly zealous. It cannot be quenched. Its gentle ferocity is a force like none have seen on this earth. It gives without self-seeking. It awakens the hearts of both the giver and receiver. It has shown me that my greatest purpose on this earth is the privilege of loving my husband and calling out the greatness inside of him, and all I want is more.
[…to be continued…]
Learning to Love,
– The Lily
Song of Solomon 8:7
“Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. If a man offered for love all the wealth of his house, he would be utterly despised.”
I AM THE LILY 