Choosing to Love

by Kristen West

Storefronts and florists are awash with red and pink décor this month as they promote Valentine’s Day. And many people are looking for a feeling that is as ooey-gooey as the centers of those gourmet chocolates they hope to get.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti-Valentine’s Day, and I certainly love getting flowers and chocolates as much as the next person, but how often do we stop there—at the superficial level—and never really learn to love.

I can attest that after 19 years of marriage now, on MOST days, there are no “butterflies in my stomach” feelings or tingly puppy love rush of emotions. There are choices…intentional, deliberate, thoughtful choices.

While that may sound boring to some, those of us who buckled up for life understand that this is where the rubber meets the road. When Anthony and I married, I vowed to love him, “for better or worse; in sickness and in health; for richer or poorer…”

Choosing to love each other—in all of our broken, imperfect “humanness”—is what love is all about. It’s what God modeled for us in hopes that we would follow His example. “We love because He first loved us…” (1 John 4:19). God’s love is always anchored in choices. According to John 3:16, God “so loved” the world that He gave His only Son. That choice wasn’t founded on a good feeling. Jesus knew He was being sent down a path that would end in brutality, public humiliation, and a tortured criminal’s death. There was nothing “lovey-dovey” about it. It was love in its rawest form—a choice to do good to another human being; to put their interests first; to consider and honor them as the valuable individual that God created them to be.

Every day I wake up, I choose to love my husband— even on those days when our brokenness bubbles to the surface and we’d like to have “time-out” chairs for each other. The choice to ask God to continually make me a better wife is love. The choice to stay “till death do us part” is love. The choice to work hard on my marriage so that those around us have a picture of what God’s heart looks like for His Bride is love.

Hmmm, I think I’ll be on the lookout this week for a conversational heart that says, “Choosing to Love!”