What is Love?

I've been contemplating love lately. My husband, Steve, and I were talking the other day about the word "LOVE." There is no stronger word to express your affection for someone else. And there are those parent or spouse moments when you feel like your heart just might explode from so much love. You know those times, when you feel like you could just chew your baby's cheek off? I don't recommend it, by the way. Or when you've made a terrible mistake and you're scared to tell your spouse, but at the same time they're the only one you need. You need their arms around you and their reassurance that everything will be ok. 

That was me this week. 

Steve and I have been married for over a decade. He is my very best friend. And I am his. When I look back at our wedding pictures, sometimes I freak myself out. I mean, I just committed to a marriage that will last through the eternities. And let's be honest, I barely knew the guy. I mean, at the time I thought I knew him so well and I was smitten. 

But now? Oh now. 10 years later. 10 years of hugs, tears, snoring, fighting, dinners, dates, friends, yard work, housework, movies, workouts, hospital visits, kisses, and 3 beautifully perfect children later.... I definitely have a better sense of what love is. But I know that my understanding of the concept will keep increasing over the years. That can be overwhelming and exciting all in the same breath. 

So, no, there isn't another word to describe love more effectively. But I guess there are ways to show it. 

How can I more effectively show my love? I still remember a talk I heard in 2003 by F. Burton Howard. I wasn't even married, or dating Steve yet. But it stuck with me. The man talked about how he and his wife got a set of precious silver when they were first married. But his wife would never use it, except for very special occasions. As their every day silverware tarnished and disappeared,  he wondered why they just couldn't use the nice set instead. She would polish it every once in a while, but never use it. There came a time when they were going to go live in a different country and his wife went and got a safety deposit box for the silver. And this is what he said, 

"For years I thought she was just a little bit eccentric, and then one day I realized that she had known for a long time something that I was just beginning to understand. If you want something to last forever, you treat it differently. You shield it and protect it. You never abuse it. You don't expose it to the elements. You don't make it common or ordinary. If it ever become tarnished, you lovingly polish it until it gleams like new. It becomes special because you have made it so, and it grows more beautiful and precious as time goes by. Eternal marriage is just like that. We need to treat it just that way."

I have since always loved that analogy. You don't make your marriage ordinary. You protect it. And WHEN it becomes tarnished, you must polish it and care for it.

Do me a favor, and comment below your thoughts on what love is and how we can express it more fully.

Love, Aly