I Want That

When I was running this morning, I passed an elderly couple walking hand in hand, and I thought, as I passed them, “I want that.”

How do we get that--lifelong, loving commitment? This is the question I pondered for the remainder of my run. Here are the conclusions I came to:

For lifelong commitment you must do these things:

Choose to love when you feel slighted

Choose to forgive when you feel you can’t

Choose to embrace when you feel like separating

Choose to pray when you feel like sulking

Choose to build up when you want to slander

Choose to think with a renewed mind when your emotions tell you lies.

It’s all about the choices we make. We can live self-centered lives that encourage individualism, defensiveness and pride, or we can live Christ-centered lives--denying ourselves, promoting our spouses, and reflecting God clearly.

I want what that elderly couple had. I want to make the hard choices that lifelong commitment requires. I want my husband to be my best friend. And I want someone, somewhere, sometime to notice Brent and I walking hand in hand and say, “I want that.”.

“Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm;
for love is as strong as death,
it’s jealousy unyielding as the grave.
It burns like a blazing fire,
like a mighty flame.
Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot wash it away.
If one were to give all the wealth of his house for love, it would be utterly scorned.”

Song of Songs 8:6-7