What shall we give for love?

The price of love

Many waters cannot quench love

neither can the floods drown

it: if a man would give all 

the substance of his house 

for love, it would utterly 

be contemned.

~Song of Solomon 8:7~

           He shuffled into the room, a little old man with a plastic grocery bag. We continued to sing our hymns while he sat down next to the paralyzed woman in her wheel chair. She was strapped into her chair; her head was the only thing that moved. But she couldn't even control her head, it moved from side to side. He sat down next to her, pulled a banana from the grocery bag, and peeled it. Slowly, he fed her the fruit—a piece at a time.

            “Mabel, eat your banana sweetie,” he might say. He spoke to her as if she could hear him.

            My family went to the nursing home every week to put on a service for the older people. They couldn't leave the nursing home to go to church, so we came to them. I don't remember the old man's name, but I do remember his love for his wife. Every day, he would get up and drive to the nursing home to see her even though she couldn't respond to his attention. She couldn't feel or give him love in response, yet he never faltered in his devotion.

            True love. We all seek a perfect man or woman to fill our loneliness. We want somebody to show us the devotion that the man in the paragraph above showed his wife. Television portrays romance as two people fighting destiny which eventually draws them together, they fall in love, they sleep together, and then they get married. Happily ever after.

            Rarely, does the happily ever after show the love of his life suffering a stroke and living her last five years without her motor skills while he feeds her bananas. He wipes away the banana that she drools out of her mouth. This scene is their only passionate act of love.

            What is love? I Corinthians says, “Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Love never fails.” Read the passage carefully. Did you know that every characteristic listed is against human nature? So, love is not a natural feeling. Love is work because you have to deny your desires.

            The woman from the Song of Solomon said that “many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it, if a man would give all of his substance for love, it would utterly be contemned.” If you love somebody, you give. You give so much that you would lose everything you for the one you love. Isn't this a contradiction to modern love? If we don't get our way, or the relationship is not benefiting us somehow, we rarely stick around. We don't give our hearts; we hold ourselves back.

            Holding ourselves from our spouse is a failure of modern love. To completely give yourself to someone, to completely trust them, opens us up to vulnerability. We don't want to give everything to a human so prone to mistakes. What if they hurt us? Did you know that hurt is a way of life? Did you know that a lot of good things come from pain? For example, a baby comes from a birth, knowledge comes from spankings, and a doctor cuts open a person's chest to fix their irregular heartbeat.

            When you give love, in a way, you are healing that person. You are showing them that they are not alone, that they are treasured, that they can be loved though they have flaws. I think every person needs love and according to my pastor “many people do not receive nearly enough love”.

            But you cannot give the kind of love that I Corinthians describes because it is humanly impossible. Since giving that kind of love all the time is against human nature, you have to kill your nature. How is it possible to kill yourself and give pure love? Christ says that he wants us to believe on him. He asks us to admit that we have a sinful and perverted nature, and turn to Him. He asks us to believe on his blood, death, and resurrection. He gave the ultimate gift of love when he gave everything—His very life—to cover the death penalty demanded by a pure and Holy God. He showed ultimate love. And the only way we can give this love to others is to let Him change our nature.

            If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us your sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 

~I John 1:9~

            When the old man in the nursing home—I never did learn his name—died, he left Mabel behind. The Sunday that he died we went to the nursing home and found Mabel sitting motionless, as usual, in her wheel chair. But when my mom went over to talk to her, Mabel started to jerk her head as if she wanted to say something. Then she said, “He's gone.” That was the only time we ever heard her say anything. A month later, Mabel died as well.

            True love. When two people last a lifetime together, know each other’s greatest faults, but still love each other—we have seen God in their lives. We know that our impossible selfish natures can be killed by the love of God and we are able to love our spouses like Christ loved us.