Whoa, I'm not suffering much anymore! Now what?!?

[Zues126]

Thanks Bob.

The other take away today was straight from the sermon, but it was one part that was really impactful to me:

LOVE NOTICES

The sermon was about how when Jesus asked to sum up all the hundreds of lessons about how God wanted us to live, the one he recapped was to "Love God, and love our neighbors as ourselves". Of all the things we are to do, that was what he chose to bring up when asked for a "cliff notes" version of how to live.

But it went on to discuss that for us to love our neighbors, we have to have the right vision. If we look at each other as inconveniences, as interruptions to our life, etc, then we won't be able to love each other because we will overlook the pain they are in, the needs they have.

I think of how many LBS's say they never knew their spouse was unhappy, or they didn't realize how deeply they wounded their partner. Instead of being resentful we didn't get more notice, I think we have to be accountable that we weren't in as truly loving a place as a M requires. It's not enough to simply love someone when we feel like it, or when the situation beats us over the head. To love our partner it means to make it a lifelong mission to understand their needs, how they feel loved, what their priorities are, and then despite our differences make the sacrifices necessary to validate and fulfill our partner lovingly.

In fact, that was the other part. The first was "Love Notices". The last was "Love Sacrifices".

So again, to tether in to my previous post...I hope for all of you and for myself that as we walk forward we'll all be not just acknowledging our partners needs when they scream at the top of their lungs and then debating, minimizing, dismissing, or making begrudging token gestures...but instead that we first NOTICE, then SACRIFICE, so we can fill our partners with love the way we commit to when we walk the aisle.