I remember walking into my Retrouvaille weekend on Friday night and looking around the room seeing all these banners on the wall. A bunch of silly slogans and I judged the silliest was one that read “Love Is A Decision.”
Well, if that wasn’t one of the dumbest things I had ever heard.
We are all taught early on that love is a feeling. Watch any prime time television show and what do you see? You see people falling in and out of love as often as the calendar changes to a new month. Society had completely masked what love is. Love is a decision.
I know, BS you are thinking. As I said, I thought the same thing.
Making the decision to love is the foundation that our marriage is built on. Love is not something that jumps up and hits us when we are not looking. Therefore, it is not something beyond our control. When you are young, you think of love as a fleeting feeling, but mature love is a decision you make. Feelings can come and go and change quickly with outside influences. If love were a feeling, then it would come and go quickly. No relationship would ever survive a struggle. A lasting love relationship has to be a deliberate and conscious decision to love, no matter how we feel.
The idea “Love is a Decision” was new to my wife and me, but it was good news. We felt empowered because we knew it was more than just a fated thing. We had a hand in it.
Marriage is not just a decision to love when you say I do on your wedding day; marriage is a decision to love by saying I do every day of your marriage. Every day when we say I do is a day we add another nail to our marriage to help make it stronger.
Love required more of us focusing on “what can I do for you” rather than “what is in it for me?” Every morning I wake up I make the decision to love my wife. I show her I love her in the small things. When she is trying to get dinner ready, and she has a fussy baby in her arms, I will sweep him out of her arms and entertain him. When she is sitting at the breakfast table in the morning reading a book to the three-year-old, I will get her a refill on her coffee without her having to ask. Small actions throughout the day help reaffirm out love for our spouse.
Commitment is more than just staying in a marriage or fidelity to our spouse. It means working on the relationship and making efforts to improve it. Our society tells us that commitment for a lifetime is outdated, but God’s truth never changes. God’s truth, will always be the truth. Commitment is a decision; it is not conditional. It is deciding to love each other for a lifetime, no matter what. As long as both parties are willing to love each other, any troubles can be overcome.
We are called on to love our spouse as Christ loved the Church. That is what I will talk about tomorrow.
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