taught to love
This Sunday will mark five years since my wife, Hallie, departed this life into the Glorious Company of the saints in Light. In The Spirit, I can see her now, fully clothed with her new body, rejoicing in the Presence of Christ and in the ample folds of His Great Love. For her and all the saints triumphant, time is no more, as The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world has triumphed over death in time to bring eternity in the now of Glory.
When she and I married 50 years ago this year, I remember wondering if I could ever possibly sustain a love for her that would last a lifetime. I loved her so, and yet I was unsure of my capacity to love over the distance, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in health and in sickness, until parted by death. It was an apt concern for, of myself, this would have been impossible. For I was a child of my culture, trained to love in a romantic, friendly, or family way, all of which I happily experienced with Hallie. But I didn't know how to love in a truly self-giving way. For that, I would need additional training.
Thankfully, the Word of God asserts that God will teach those who love Him how to love others truly, particularly those in the Body of Christ: Paul says to the Christians in Thessalonica, you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other with that self-giving Love of God for us (1 Thess. 4:9). No doubt this applies to believers united in Holy Matrimony, as I once was. Through the years, God taught me how to love Hallie with that Love that comes from Him and is planted within us by The Holy Spirit. I had to unlearn the patterns of love I had seen in my world, and adopt the Love which was offered to me in Word and Spirit. This Love was honed and refined by struggle and trouble, none more so than when Hallie dealt with neurological failures during the last 15 years of her life, doing so with grace and humor. In caring for her, and she for me, we learned what Love really is, and agreed that, though we wouldn't have wished our situation on anyone, because of Love we're not sure that we would have traded it away.
May God continue to teach you and me to love one another, and may that Love in us spill over to one and all in the Matchless Name of Love, Jesus.