Love Isn't All You Need

Sometimes love isn't enough.  

Here are some famous lies about love:

• Love means never having to say you're sorry.  
• If I love him enough, he will change.

Remember the famous line in the movie, "Love Story," Love means never having to say you're sorry?  Does anyone really believe that?  Love means learning to die to one's self.  Love is wonderful and incredibly hard sometimes.  Love means having to say you are sorry again and again...love sometimes means wounding the other person...and receiving wounds.

I am not an expert on love.  I am trying to figure it out.  I would love to find a Christian man with whom to share my life and ministry.  Here are a few tidbits of wisdom I have gleaned on my journey.  Feel free to share yours in the comments at the end.  Maybe we can help each other!

1.  I need to be open to change.  Never mind about finding the "perfect" person (as far as I know, the only perfect person who has ever walked this earth is Jesus).  And never mind about finding the "almost" perfect person and trying to change him. What is most important is that I work on changing me.  

2.  I need to know myself.  What are my strengths and weaknesses?  What do I enjoy and what would I like to avoid?  Do I have patterns in relationships that seem to repeat themselves?  Is there a type of person who brings out the best/worst in me?  What is my primary Love Language?

3.  I am not looking for my other "half."  I am a whole person who is looking for another whole person.  I am not half-of-a-person waiting to be completed.  Oh, there's another famous movie line, You complete me.  

4.  Laughter is Medicine for Soul.  Sometimes the search for love can be intense and serious...I don't want to make a mistake.  I want to "get it right."  When it's all said and done, enjoying someones company and laughing together goes a long way.  From what I have observed in the marriages of my friends and family, being best friends and enjoying each other's company is a strong foundation.

5.  Lust and Love are not the same thing.  I think it is important for the attraction to be mutual, however, sometimes the strongest physical attraction doesn't make for the best romance.  The intensity of lust will fade over time.  Is there a foundation of shared faith, mutual respect, shared interests, and pure enjoyment of being together?

6.  Personal boundaries must be respected.  It is healthy to have personal boundaries.  I am suspect if I meet a man who seems to have none.  I run away if he doesn't respect my boundaries.  One huge boundary for me is that I will not engage in premarital sex.  I call it "practicing faithfulness."  I am being faithful to God, to myself, and to my future husband.  If a potential partner cannot appreciate this, then he is not someone who should pursue me.  I don't just want my boundary to be tolerated, I want it to be appreciated.  Doesn't he ultimately want a wife who has proved her faithfulness to him even before he met her?  If he doesn't, he is not the man for me.

7.  It is a deal breaker if he does not hunger for God.  Life is hard.  As we get older, it seems to get harder.  I need a man I can "lean on" in the hard times.  If he is leaning on God, I can lean on him.  The most important relationship in my life is my relationship with God.  He is my touchstone.  He is my all in all.  A man must share this with me.  He can't just give lip service to being a Christian...I need to hear him pray...I need to see him walk with God.  

Okay, I'm sure there are many other things I could say here, but seven seems like a good number for now.  What do you think?  Please feel free to comment and share your thoughts.

1 Corinthians 13

New International Version (NIV)

13 If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.