I am reading a novel at school with my students and it is my favorite thing to teach each year because it covers such a broad array of subjects that our discussion each day could go in a million different directions. In honor of Valentines Day, it was pushed in the direction of love today. We divided out the 4 types of love according to the Greeks and discussed the differences between eros, storge, phileo and agape love. Additionally, we discussed the inability of a language to completely express love in words. For example, I love chocolate by eating a lot of it. I love my children by hugging them and kissing them as much as possible. I love my husband by carrying out acts of love showing compromise, loyalty, and selflessness. [No worries, class stays G-rated.] As we discussed love today, I couldn't help but think of my own personal exploration of it.
The day Mark and I got married, the reading at our wedding was 1 Corinthians 13, like a large percentage of other Catholic couples who get married. I didn't fully understand it at the time and was annoyed that it was such a cookie-cutter reading and that there were so few other options to choose from...[I definitely wasn't going with the subservient reading, much to Mark's chagrin]. However, as time has passed and our love has grown, I take comfort in this reading...especially, (7) Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love bears all things. There are so many seasons to life and our love has sheltered us from many storms while we have watched some of our friends painfully bear the squall. The despair of divorce. The heartache of infidelity. The misery of a love-less marriage...all things our love has safeguarded us from experiencing. And as love believes all things, I truly trust and believe that Mark and I will not have to. I know it's naive, but I feel like the moment I question this belief is the moment that our marriage fails. So I optimistically anticipate never questioning it as love hopes all things. One of the things my principal has ingrained in our staff at school is that, "hope is not a strategy." However, when Will was born, we learned what it was like to have hope as our only strategy. It helped us understand the importance of hope in all things and that regardless of the compounding heartache that awaited, it was best to have our hopes shattered, believing that all things were possible and loving fiercely inside of that hope. It is this same hope that ensures that our love endures all things. Love carries us forward. Love for God. Love for our children. Love for each other. Wishing you all a most agape-filled love this Valentine's Day...bearing, believing, hoping and enduring all.
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