Sacrificial Love

I’ve always thought that I loved my husband sacrificially. I go out of my way to make sure that he comes home to a house filled with love. I’ve followed him across the country to an unknown city, and helped to make a home for us far from the people we loved. I give him the benefit of the doubt, make his meals for him, clean the house, and try to always respond to him with courtesy and respect. I try to live out the words of 1 Corinthians 13, in which Paul describes, real “agape” love. I try to be patient and kind in the way that I respond to him.
Perhaps, in a sense, I have loved him with a sacrificial love. Isn’t that how a military wife has to love?
Just the same, it wasn’t until I had a baby that I understood sacrificial love on a deeper level. My husband has always been relatively easy to love and serve… a baby is far more demanding.
My little one doesn’t care if she’s interrupting my dinner, or my sleep in the middle of the night. She doesn’t care if I miss out on the sermon at church or the movie we rented from Netflix®. If she has a need, she wants it meant immediately. Sometimes her need for love is downright overwhelming. It’s not easy missing out on meals or sleep or sermons or movies. At times I’m downright resentful in fact.
Just the same, God is teaching me such a great lesson on love through this little child. He’s teaching me what true love feels like. Through this child, I’m learning how to not only love her, but to love my husband and those around me with more of a servant heart.
In the coming years, there will be times when my husband is deployed, and I’ll be loving him from far away. I can’t help but think that the lesson I’m learning right now will help me in the days ahead.
God is definitely teaching me some valuable lessons. What has he been teaching you?

Ruth: An Example of Sacrificial Love

Yesterday I re-read the story of Ruth. I was once again struck by the beautiful vow she makes. After the death of the men in their family, Ruth’s mother-in-law Naomi tells Ruth that she can go back to her own people and worship her own gods. This is Ruth’s memorable response:

“Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me.’" (Ruth 1:16-17 NIV).

Ruth is willing to leave everything she knows behind, in order to follow her mother-in-law into a foreign land. What a display of agape love she showed here! She obviously view Naomi as someone who deserved her love and respect. And she was willing to do anything to prove that.

As I read these verses above, I wondered if I have ever displayed such faithfulness and love in my own life. The first person that came to mind was my husband. When I married Him, I promised to follow Him wherever the military would take us. I understood that this would mean some sacrifice on both of our parts. We would more than likely live hundreds to thousands of miles away from our family. There would be times when my husband would be called up, leaving me and our future children in an unknown city without many friends. The vow I made that day wasn’t taken lightlhy. Just the same, I’m only learning, day by day, what it truly means to build a life with someone. I’m only now truly learning what it means to love someone unconditionally, as Ruth showed us in her story. I only hope I can live up to her example.

How has sacrificial love exhibited itself in your life?

Christmas Love

With the military comes a good bit of traveling. Last week my husband was out of state, this week the two of us will be traveling half-way across the country to visit with family and friends. The time together will be a good one, but I’m sure it won’t be without it’s drama. What family isn’t? Isn't that part of what makes family get-togethers so precious? Here we are, stuck together in a family for life, forced to love through flaws and shortcomings. I was reminded yesterday in church that it’s not my place to change my family, or to make their lives better, but to just simply love them. What a simple task, but we often make it so overly complicated. We think loving is such a hard thing.

To be honest, I would never have the capacity to love, if it wasn’t for Christ. He is the one who showed us all what true, sacrificial love is all about. He is the one I want to love like.

I’ll be honest, I in no way have this all figured out, but my resolution for Christmas this year is to simply love. If this means not bringing up certain issues or topic, then so be it. I’ll love, and let God do the rest.
“My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you” (John 15:12).
“Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble” (1 John 2:10).
“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love” (1 John 4:18).

^“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 13:13).

TDY

I’ll admit it here and now, I’m not a fan of TDYs, (temporary duty assignments). They’re often last minute and throw all of our plans out of whack. Just the same, I recognize that they’re just one more way that I have to learn to be more flexible and supportive as a military wife.

It’s tough at times being home alone, managing the household finances, and keeping life rolling while my husband is away. I miss his company, his voice, and even his smelly clothes while he’ away. Just the same, I’ve found reasons to be the thankful for TDYs.

How can I be thankful, you ask? Because with TDYs my husband is more than likely still in the states and will be home in a matter of days or weeks, instead of the long months in a deployment. With TDYs I feel as if my husband is still relatively close by. If I really needed him, I could jump on a plane and be with him in a matter of hours. With TDYs my husband is just on a military business trip, relatively safe and sound and another military institution in the States. When I look at the scope of things, TDYs really aren’t that bad.

For me it’s all about support and flexibility. I can’t change when my husband is leaving or how long he’ll be gone. That’s completely out of my hands. What is up to me is my attitude. I can whine, complain and cry about him leaving. I can be miserable on the phone whenever he calls and make him not want to be home. Or I can be encouraging, kind, and uplifting, telling him time and again how much I miss him and love him. The second would make him want to come home all the quicker, wouldn’t it?

Who knows when my husband will be gone again, for today I chose to be the supporting, loving wife I know I can be, deep inside. I chose to act out the “Love Chapter” in 1 Corinthians 13. I encourage you to pry open your Bible today and read this special chapter. Then leave a comment and let me know what you got out of it. Loving and encouraging our husbands is a full time job, whether they’re next to us or in a completely different country.

Flexibility and Love

The Love Chapter, in 1 Corinthians 13, holds a special place in my heart. Not too long ago I spoke these words to my husband, as we stood in front of family and friends and pledged our lives to each other. I promised to love him this way, but I often fall short when it comes to this type of Godly love.
My selfish tendencies often overtake my desire to love my husband wholeheartedly. This problem is amplified when it comes to his career in the military. At times, I am anything but loving and supportive. I am anything but flexible.
I tried to look up the word “flexible” in the Bible, but nothing came up. And so, instead, I decided to look harder at 1 Corinthians 13. I found three phrases there that seem to correlate with the trait of flexibility:
These phrases tell us that love: “does not seek it’s own,” “endures all things,” “never fails” (NASB Version).
This is the kind of love I strive to have for myself.
But what do these above phrases mean?
Let’s delve a bit deeper and look at their original meaning the Greek.
Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance is my good friend when it comes to looking up the original meaning of the words. Here’s what I found for each of these phrases:

1 Corinthians 13:5 tells us that Love “Does not seek it’s own.” The Greek word for “does not seek” is zēteo. So this phrase is telling us that Love does not crave, or demand something from someone.
Wow, this is a tough one. I know that I often make demands of my husband that he can’t fulfill because of his job. I want him to call me during the day, come home early just to be with me, and spend the entire weekend going places with me, entertaining my every whim. But this verse seems to be saying that true love doesn’t look like this. It seems to be saying that I shouldn’t demand things from my husband, but should instead focus on doing things for him.
1 Corinthians 13:7 says that Love “endures all things.” I was so excited when I looked up these words. First, the Greek word for “endures” is hypomenō, which means to remain, to bear bravely and calmly. The word used for “all things” is pas which simply means “everything.”
True love remains through everything, good times and bad, times of deployment, and times of safety, times of stress and times of peace. True love goes through these times calmly, knowing that God will provide.
This isn’t easy, I’ll admit. At times, I am anything but calm. I stress, I worry, and I make like more difficult overall. God is slowly working on me when it comes to this sort of love. I know that I need to be flexible and love my husband through the tough times.
1 Corinthians 13:8 says that love “never fails.” The Greek word for “never” is oudepote which simply means never. The Greek word for “fails” is piptō which means to perish, i.e. come to an end, disappear, cease. In other words “never fails” means to never come to an end.
True love never ends. It always perseveres, through good times and bad. Our society today seems to believe that people fall in and out of love. God’s word tells us that agape love never ceases to exist.
My paraphrased version of theses three love above attributes is this:
Love does not crave or demand something from someone. It remains through everything. Love never comes to an end.
What does this mean to me? It means that I will need God’s help immensely in order to love my husband this way. I can’t do it on my own. If I tried, I would fail. But instead, I depend on God to see me through each day. I ask him to help me love my spouse, to help me remain constant through the touch times, and to put his needs before my own.
As I remain through those tough times, I ask God for flexibility. I ask him to give me a heart that can support my husband and whatever changes may come up in our day-to-day life. I don’t hold onto my own plans and goals too much, but instead, ask God to help me follow wherever my husband may lead.