I was thinking about my late brother and how he had never gotten married and never was even close to it. I know one of things that always got to him was that he never truly felt loved. He was loved more than he realized, but I digress. Thinking about that actually made me pretty sad, BUT it also made me realize something. Finding someone who truly loves you is a blessing.
Anyway, in pondering the above, I also thought about what love is and what it isn't. What is is meant to be and what it isn't meant to be.
The bible speaks on love and marriage extensively, sometimes seemingly for and against it. See below:
- The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him." Genesis 2:18
- I say this as a concession, not as a command. I wish that all of you were as I am. But each of you has your own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that. Now to the unmarried[a] and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I do. But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion. 1 Corinthians 7:6-9
But, my understanding of love is this:
- Love is not meant to validate us. Our validation comes from our relationship to our higher power. Love is a gift of our higher power to help us not feel alone, isolated and unappreciated.
- The love of another isn't meant to make us complete us, it is meant to complement us
- Love shouldn't be to 'fix' or 'solve our problems', but instead free us from feeling alone and unappreciated such that we can with focus on dealing with the things we need to. I think that's at least part of what the apostle Paul was saying in 1st Corinthians above.
In short, love and marriage are meant to enrich us, not to replace what is missing in us. Love is meant to be beneficial to both parties and not to feed into each other's dysfunctionality.
I guess my takeaway is rely on the your higher power (God) for your validation, but appreciate the value of love which He has provided for us.
