Love That Stays

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My husband and I celebrated our forty-seventh wedding anniversary this week. Of course, we did a little bit of reminiscing about our lives together so far. We laughed at pictures from our wedding day, astonished at how young we looked. We also laughed about some of the silly things that were important to us back then as newlyweds.

But mostly, when we look back over our lives together, we’re absolutely amazed at God’s faithfulness. He was always there, guiding us, guarding us, and keeping us through the normal ups and downs of life as well as the hard times. To be honest, God carried us through everything – financial hardships, sicknesses, career changes, and even the death of our youngest son.

We know without a doubt that God’s faithful love for us is the only reason we have been able to stand, stay, and love each other faithfully for the past 47 years. His sacrificial love is the scarlet thread that runs mercifully through every memory we share as husband and wife. And along the way, we have learned that His love is the only real love there is, was, or ever will be.

So, it’s no wonder that I have been pondering the concept of love.

To be bluntly honest, my ponderings started as I silently watched so many young Christian couples over the past few months who are struggling to navigate love and marriage. My heart hurts for them, and it hurts for those of us who are impacted by their choices, including kids, grandparents, and countless other friends and family members.

As I pondered and prayed for these young couples and their children, I began studying various passages in the Bible about love. I quickly discovered that the first scriptural mention of the word love occurred in Genesis 22:2, “He said, ‘Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you.’”

Somehow, I was not surprised to see the sacrificial surrender of Abraham’s only son as the first biblical mention of love. I was reminded that this first mention of love also foreshadowed the same sacrificial love of God giving His only Son to save us from our sins.

But according to Greek scholars, there are at least four types of love: eros, storge, philia, and agape. On the Love Worth Finding (LWF) website, I found that eros is described as the romantic love between a man and a woman; storge is familial or brotherly love; philia is basically love for friends; and agape is sacrificial love.

I also learned at LWF that even though only two of these Greek words for love are used specifically in the Bible, examples of all four of these types of love are found throughout Scripture.

In fact, in the initial use of the word love in Genesis 22:2, we see the perfect example of agape. And then, that unconditional, sacrificial love was demonstrated perfectly on Calvary by our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

But if eros is the love between a man and woman, then what does agape love have to do with marriage?

Everything, according to Ephesians 5.

In the very first verse of this profound chapter, our instructions are quite clear: “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.”

If that is not direct enough, verse 25 pulls no punches as to the need for agape love in marriage, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her."

The truth is that any successful marriage will be a continual picture of the sacrificial love of Christ.

Perhaps the late Reverend Horace Bushnell expressed this truth best in his book Vicarious Sacrifice, “There is a Gethsemane hid in all love.”

Bushnell went on to explain that sooner or later, “heavy groaning” will be heard in all true love, just like it was heard from Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane.

So, yes, self-sacrificing, agape love is a prerequisite for a lasting marriage. But the greatest aspect of sacrificial love might just be one we forget to teach our kids in Sunday School or, God forbid, in our homes. And that attribute is the steadfast nature of agape love.

Back in that garden that Reverend Bushnell referenced, we often skim over the part where human nature battled with the divinity of Jesus, wanting to forego the agonizing pain to come.

But Jesus stayed.

Even though his three closest disciples slept and left Him to suffer alone, Jesus stayed – and He prayed about the bloody cup He was about to drink, “My Father, if this cannot pass away unless I drink it, Your will be done.”

In my opinion, that was the most loving thing Jesus ever did for me. He simply stayed in that garden until God’s sacrificial plan unfolded. He stayed right there – for me.

But sadly, I am afraid that is exactly the part of unconditional, sacrificial, agape love that we have forgotten to model in our marriages. We have forgotten to simply stay.

So, my prayer today, as Randy and I celebrate 47 years of marriage, is a prayer of gratitude for God helping us to stay together every single day, in the good times and especially in the bad times. I also thank Him for His faithfulness in staying with us in our darkest times. He never left us or forsook us, and He never will. He literally carried us, if the truth is told.

And for all the young couples I see struggling in this moment, I pray they will also trust in His steadfast, unfailing love that will sacrificially undergird and carry their marriages.

Most of all, I pray they understand that, if they surrender their marriage to Jesus, He will stay with them through it all.

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