love is a behaviour

I find that married couples on the brink of disaster will say, “He or she doesn’t make me happy, I deserve to be happy”. Honestly, I was one of those people shouting from the roof tops to anyone that would listen. Years ago, I found myself in a miserable state and everyone who loved me longed for me to be happy.

deserving happiness

My eyes were not opened to the truth that was staring desperately at me. I was creating just as much unhappiness as was being inflicted on me! It was a vicious cycle, each one of us ‘one upping’ the other with nastiness and sometimes even abusive behaviours. We both were becoming creatures of conflict. Some of our family would refer to us as “functioning disfunction”. It was in this disfunction that my longing for ‘deserving happiness’ grew.

dads week, moms week

Walking into a house the other day, I noticed a schedule on the upstairs wall. It was in an odd spot, not eye level for an adult, and hung between two children’s rooms. The natural reaction I had was that it was for a chore chart. Closely, I examined this wall board as if I was drawn to a past life. A tear streamed down my cheek and I verbally announced how sad I was to the other team members viewing the home. They looked at the calendar and seemed un-phased that it said: “dads week”, “moms week”. Viewing homes I usually look at the bones, the renovations, the location yet on this day, in this home I noticed a calendar.

failing for a season

Our happiness is always changing, melding, flexing and will look different based on our own likes and dislikes. It is dangerous to rely on another person to maintain our happiness, if that person fails for a season, how do we handle it? God teaches us in the scripture about love and I do not believe that God was writing about blissful marriages. You know the type of marriage I am talking about, the one you compare yours to, maybe the picture above?

wait for the harvest

God wrote in scripture that love is a behaviour. It is kind. It is patient. Why would He say those two things first? I believe, He want us to know that being unkind feels good when we are mad, however the end result can be very painful. God knows that truly loving someone takes time. He wants us to be patient, instead of picking all the blooms of the first fruits, he wants us to wait for the harvest.

i did the opposite

My story played out just like millions of other divorced people. I was doing the opposite of every behaviour in God’s manual which talked about love. The ending of my marriage didn’t make my happiness magically come back. It was a process of behaving differently, instead of looking to someone else to create it for me.

He hasn’t left me

God never once said, get married and you will always be happy. He actually never compared marriage to happiness at all. He compared marriage to His love for His people and how He would never leave them. With the way I have behaved towards God, I am sure He would have left me by now, yet He hasn’t. God is probably unhappy many days in my marriage with Him, yet He stays. Gods love is demonstrated by His behaviour, He is always kind, He is patient, and His love is never ending.

I was supposed to look at the house, but I saw a calendar on the wall.