What's Love Got To Do With It?

We were searching for something to watch between football and the news tonight and settled on "Storage Wars".  If you haven't seen the show, it's a show about storage units that have been abandoned. Buyers come to the auction, only get to peak inside, bid and hope they get some good stuff to resell.

I was reminded of a time in my life when I didn't quite feel as blessed as I am now.  The marriage I was in at the time was toxic and I was doing a great job of making that worse on a daily basis.  We went through a period of time when we were evicted (a couple of times), had a car repossessed, had our storage unit auctioned off, had some legal issues and filed bankruptcy.  I may not have been a drug addict or had a drinking problem, but I was in a really bad spot.

My decisions during that time were far from the right ones.  I made choices that hurt a lot of people, damaged my family, and caused more problems than we started with.  But I felt, with each of those decisions, that it would be worth it all in the end.  I was striving at every turn to feel love.  I knew that about 2% of the time, he could be the guy I fell in love with when I was 16.  I felt as though the decisions I was making would make him love me the way I desperately wanted to be loved.  I thought I could love him enough to love me in return.  Instead, my choices were pushing us further and further apart and the guy that made up that 2% I adored was no where to be found.

In my current marriage, I feel love in every second of every day.  We got married at a courthouse by a Justice of the Peace.  I had the large church wedding the first time and really just wanted to have a celebration of our love together.  I really didn't know what to expect from a courtroom wedding, but I knew that I wanted nothing more that to marry him.  We walked into the courtroom and it was filled with people who were trying to stop from either being evicted or having their homes repossessed.  Talk about a buzz kill!  But, we were first on the agenda so the judge called us up and introduced us to the court.

He asked a couple of questions about our intentions and then said something neither one of us will ever forget.  "God is Love.  If you love God, receive his love and truly love one another, this marriage will work.  If you choose to put him first, you will make it.  Don't ever forget, GOD IS LOVE."  After the rest of the formalities of the ceremony, the room of people that were facing a very difficult day ahead of them, stood and clapped and cheered as we walked out of the courtroom.  God's love was spread to that room of people that day.  I have no idea if they still had their houses to go home to, but they heard about God's love and that made it worth being there.

I now know that love is the greatest gift of all.  I have heard that all my life, but now know it first hand.  Most of us grow up knowing our parents love us and we tend to take that for granted.  They are supposed to love us, right?  But when we grow up and we have to find love, give love, share love and extend love to those who are hardest to love, it gets complicated.  But it really is simple.  GOD IS LOVE! Seek it, find it, receive it, return it, share it, express it, expand it, live it and embrace it.  That is where it starts.  The rest depends on it.

As this journey continues, my prayer is that God's love will be felt by all of those I come in contact with. I want to reach those who need to feel the love that I feel thanks to the love of God filling my husband's heart, filling my heart and guiding both of us through our lives.  I want them to feel the love the love of God that my parents felt and still feel as they continue to guide my sisters and I.  I want them to feel the love of God I am sharing with my children as they grow.

What's Love Got to Do With It? EVERYTHING!