Love endures when the honeymoon of any close relationship is over, and we look with clear eyes at a man or woman who is as fragile, limited, and imperfect as we are, not a God or Goddess - and we continue to love him/her anyway. Maybe, in fact, we REALLY love him/her for the first time!
Love endures.
Love endures when life has become a burden, and, even worse, boring, and we keep slogging along, putting one foot in front of the other, instead of spending every extra minute seated in front of a computer game, or at a bar. Because there's the mortgage to pay on the house and a bill almost as big as a mortgage on two pairs of kids' braces. We're committed now, even though sometimes we feel as if we should be committed, - in a straight jacket, no less. But, no other cross of commitments would make sense to us.
Love endures.
Love endures through bitter arguments, through mastectomies, through strokes, through bankruptcies, through depression, through prostate cancer. We look at the other, heart mutilated by grief, but there's nowhere else to go. No one else who spells "home" to us. No one else we want in our bed or on our speed dial. We're broken, they're broken. We may as well be broken - and mend - together.
Love endures.
Love endures when a child cries "I hate you." When a teen yells "You don't understand me." When a young adult says "We're moving cross country." When a son says "I'm gay" or a daughter says "I'm a lesbian." When a child loses a limb, or enters a psychiatric unit. When a friend says "I'm getting a divorce." Love stretches to understand. Love strengthens to listen and accept. Love dissolves into tears and then brightens into smiles. Love is there for the long haul. For hugs, kisses, hand-holding, and never-ending phone calls.
Love endures.
Love endures through gray hair and stretch marks, through limping with sciatica instead of going ballroom dancing, through sitting with a new grandchild instead of standing to hold her. Love endures when conversations swirl around us because we're deaf, and the pills we take at supper multiply like rabbits. Love endures when times of lovemaking are fewer but more precious because now we know our time together has a limit. Love endures because bodies fail but love never ends. And with every year, love grows deeper, wider, spreading out like an ocean. Mellower. Wiser.
Love finally sees God's Face in everyone. In parent, spouse, child, friend, or enemy. In the next door neighbor or the child in Africa or Syria. In the people praying at Full Gospel Tabernacle, or Church of God in Christ, or St. Francis. In the people praying in a Temple, or praying in a Mosque. Love looks into every loving heart and sees God. Even when others are blind to His Presence, Love sees and endures. For we love with the heart of God, and God's love endures.
Love endures by giving praise and thanks: Give thanks to the Lord for He is good and His Love is everlasting. When God loves through us, Love is never impossible, and every person is a Valentine in our lives, a gift to be savored: from the guy in the office cubicle next to ours or the clerk at Walmart. When God loves through us, every moment spent with our loved ones is a Valentine: trips to Denny's or the latest Steakhouse; movie nights with pizza and popcorn at home; nights at a jazz club or at the Philharmonic; skiing trips or trips visiting prospective colleges; playing games on the Internet, or a board game like Scrabble or chess; visiting the ones we love during hospital stays, or holding a hand during those final, wrenching moments at Hospice.
Love endures. Love never ends, because Hope never ends. Because Enduring Love has Faith that the Next Stop is Eternity.