Day 10: Love is Unconditional

DARE:Do something out of the ordinary today for your spouse - something that process (to you and to them) that your love is based on your choice and nothing else. Wash her car. Clean the kitchen. Buy his favorite desert. Fold the laundry. Demonstrate love to them for the sheer joy of being their partner in marriage.

God demonstrates His own love to us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Rom 5:8 (one of my old Bible memorization verses I learned as a kid) Reality - God died for me seeing all the horrible sin I would commit against Him, my daddy, my father, my GOD! how heart-breaking, yet happy, to know someone loves me that much!

The book asks WHY DO YOU LOVE YOUR SPOUSE? If someone ask you that, what would you say. Well, I have already stated some things about him that i love. He is a Christian. He is hot. He takes care of his family. He has stuck with me through thick and thin. he is hot. He is super duper smart! He is hot! and the list goes on and on...But the book ask what would happen if he stopped all these things. If his Christian walk was failing. If he got fat! If he stopped educating himself and got dumb. If he gave up on us.....Would I still love him? I would have to say over the last three years, my answer would be no. I wouldn't. I didn't. But now I'm trying to gain this unconditional love for him and for GOD, that will never falter! The only way love can last a lifetime and we can grown old together is if it is unconditional. Love is not determined by the one being loved, but rather by the one choosing to love. This kind of love is agape love; the kind of love God has for us!

Agape love differs from other types of love: Phileo (friendship), and Eros (Sexual). Both of these must take place in a marriage, but the foundation of these types loves has to be based on an agape love. Phileo and Eros are based on feelings. Agape is selfless and unconditional. Agape is in sickness and health, for richer for poorer, for BETTER for WORSE. Thank you Lord for sending a man, a husband for me, who has stuck by me through all of these things!

Although we can never fully obtain God agape love for us for our spouse...we can strive for it. You see, man can fall in and out of love, if it is not unconditional love. Cory has had unconditional love for me, and I am chosing to have it for him. Thick or thin...I will love him. Not just about friendship and sex, even though they are good, but about unconditional love. If agape love is the foundation, the enjoyment of all the 'loves' come into play. The trick is knowing that we can not obtain agape love on our own. It has to come from God. Not within, not from my own works, but from God!

The Bible says, "neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. This is God's love...and by our choice, it can be my kind of love too! AMEN!

Once this love is gained, the book says to not be surprised when your spouse begins living confidentially under its shade, or becomes more lovable to you..because then it is no longer "i love you because...", it is " I love you, period."

My prayer today is regain unconditional love for Cory and allow him to feel it. To make him comfortable in our marriage again. To let him know I am his, he is mine, and I will be here no matter what!