Love is a Choice

Love is often thought of and even defined as a feeling. Frequently, someone who has been married for a long time states they are leaving their spouse because they no longer feel they love them. Others desiring to end relationships use the excuse that they have simply fallen out of love. I considered myself one of them.
I was born into this life by the act of two people who mistakenly confused lust with love. My parents were lost souls, trying to find love based on what it felt like. Their feelings soon faded and I was left with a wounded mother and without my father.
I grew up with a lack of love, feeling empty inside— muddling through life— an oozing hole in my heart. As I matured, I began seeking love outside the home. But without parents to teach me about love, how was I to know? With society demonstrating an example of feelings first, what guidelines were left to follow?
Fortunately for me, at the age of seventeen, I was pointed in the right direction. It was Easter Sunday when I first learned I was loved, indeed. As I listened to the story of a man named Jesus, who gave his life for mine, tears began to stream down my cheeks. Finally, I was able to purge my grieving soul and experience a divine love that only comes from God!
My wounded heart was, at last, filled with hope. I found the answers I’d been seeking. This new awareness exuded feelings of overwhelming glee! I drew closer to God and discovered a peace the Bible refers to as the peace that passes all understanding. It calmed and quieted my soul.
While studying the Bible and attending church, I blossomed. My outlook remained hopeful as I excelled in my pursuit to become an elementary school teacher. But a year later, in the matter of a moment, my dream was shattered. I’d been hit from behind by a speeding car. I awoke in the hospital experiencing horrific pain radiating from my neck to my lower back. I was sent home a week later, injuries braced, alone and unable to care for even my basic needs.
The elation I’d felt spiralled downward as I lay in bed, tears soaking my pillow and my heart trembling with fear! How would I survive the recovery? My disappointment grew deeper when even my mom didn’t come to my aide. How could she stay away when I needed her so much?Someone in the ghostly house where I lived occasionally brought me food, but I was extremely withdrawn, sleeping most of the time. When I was awake, I questioned God. Had he, too, abandoned me?
Around a month after my accident, I received a phone call from someone I knew vaguely from church. He’d noticed that I wasn’t at services lately and wanted to encourage me to return. I told him of my predicament and he offered to come for a visit. I was so desperate for company that I accepted. And then he asked me what I thought was a strange question, “What is your favourite flavour of ice cream?”
Later that day he appeared at my door sporting a jolly smile, a big bag of groceries in hand. He sensed that I was uneasy about accepting the groceries so he proceeded to tell me a tale. “A little old lady followed me around the store filling up my shopping cart. Then she insisted upon paying for the groceries,” he said. I couldn’t help the huge grin that poured across my face. The next thing I knew, this sweet person who clearly had a sense of humour, pulled out a carton of my favourite ice cream—black current.
I began to relax and soon I started telling him my life story. I shared with him the details of the accident, how the doctors predicted a long recovery, and how I had lost my scholarship money as well as my good teaching job. After pouring my heart out, he began to share his faith with me. He pointed me back to a place of hope. “God is still here, you need to lean into and trust in him” he said. I began to realize that love was not about how I felt. It was a decision. I needed to make a choice. At that moment I chose to love God despite my desperate feelings. And God’s blessings began to fill my life. As I forced myself to read God's word and sing his praises, the feelings came back. But first, I had to make the choice.
I learned that this lesson holds true in our every day lives as well, when almost a year later the kind-hearted stranger became my wife. I had recovered nicely from the accident, but still I continued to struggle with the concept of love, making the first several years of our marriage very difficult. I tried to love my wife, but I just didn’t know how. Fortunately for me, she did. She knew what it was to love unconditionally. When things got ugly between us, my first instinct was to leave. This reaction was ingrained. But because I was committed to Christ, I was determined to do the right thing.
In desperation I sought God’s word. I found his definition of love to be very different than what I had observed most of my life. His word says that love is patient, love is kind, and love is long suffering. Love hopes all things, bears all things, and believes all things. I began to pray. And with the strength of the Lord, I was able to deny my feelings of misery and defeat, and continue to work on loving my wife.
As time passed, I realized the benefits of sticking things through. The hurts still came, but love remained. Our relationship grew stronger, and our love, deeper.
My dear wife and I went on to bring two beautiful boys into the world. I was extremely happy with my life. I thoroughly enjoyed being a hands-on dad and was living the life I’d always dreamed of. But this dream, too, was lost. At the age of 28, another tragic accident left me with severe spinal damage. This time I did not recover. I became bed-ridden and remained in severe, relentless pain.
I could no longer care for myself, her or our sons, who were all under the age of eight. It was more than my wife could bear and she wanted to leave me. We both grieved and felt a tremendous sense of loss.After a period of mourning, my hope was restored. Suddenly, I was the one loving her unconditionally without feeling her love in return. It was tormenting watching her withdraw in anger. But I grew in a way that I didn’t think possible. I gained patience as I consoled her until she was able to accept the loss of my health.With time, she lovingly took on the role as caregiver. When later asked why, she said, “The reason I stayed and served you is because of the covenant I made with God on my wedding day. I was committed to doing the right thing.” Wow, what a lady huh?
Our lives are not what we had hoped, but God continues showering us with His grace. I am so glad that both chose to love when the other was ready to give up. We realize that love is not a feeling, it’s an action. Love endures, denies self, and does the right thing when feelings are gone.
We have been married for eighteen years, the latter ten with my failing health. Despite our hardships—possibly because of them—we have a love that is so dynamic, so strong, that it comes shining through even in the worst of times.
Choose to love! Make the right, even though seemingly harder choice, in marriage, as a parent, or even in wounded relationships. Your marriage will thrive, and you will begin to restore the broken places of your heart.God loves each of us unconditionally and desires us to love the unlovely. I felt unlovable most of my life, then became disabled twice and felt even less lovable. But God blessed me with my wife, who loved me anyway. She found value in me, just for who I am, not for what I do. Now I know I am lovable! My heart is whole—and I have an abundance of love to give….just because I chose to love.