If you’re married, or if you have ever watched a movie in which two people get married, you are probably familiar with wedding vows, including the line to love one another in sickness and in health. Now, while some vows have morphed over the years, some being dropped by many from the traditional promises exchanged before friends and family, and others having their wording tweaked along the way, there remains the idea that when two people get married, they promise to love each other through all the circumstances life might bring their way. Having been married for almost 25 years (we hit 25 in October this year), I can assure you this ideal of love can sometimes feel easier said than done, and that’s because choosing to love someone, especially in the lean times or the harder times life presents, requires committed action.
Love is always a choice and it is always active. In other words, love demands something of us. The question always is whether we are willing to choose it. Are we willing to choose an unconditional, abundant, all-encompassing kind of love?
We make this same choice when we choose to have children. And with children, that choice is perhaps even more important and maybe even more difficult at times to make. Still, we must choose it, sometimes moment-by-moment. Like living by faith, like trusting God with our worries and anxieties, loving others, including our teenagers, sometimes is a moment-by-moment experience.
For me, this is never truer than when one of my crew is sick. It doesn’t matter if it’s my husband, one of my teenagers, or even me, my patience is never more stretched than in the face of sickness of any kind—the flu, an infection, a sore knee, or just a cold. Sickness is a disruption to the rhythms of life and I don’t always handle interruptions and disruptions well. I know this about myself. And still I have to pause often when one of us is sick. I have to remind myself to take some deep breaths. I have to remind myself that people matter more than things I need to do.
Even in the face of this helpful self-talk, I stumble. I fall short. I don’t love as well as I intend or as I promised myself I would. This is especially true in the wee overnight hours when my teenager is feeling the weariness of her sickness and would benefit from comfort and care. My intentions are always good ones; but my execution is not always so good. Even so, I always seek the grace, mercy, and forgiveness that allows me to try again. And again. And again.
God provides me the clean slate and the renewed mind to try again. So I am able to choose to love, and to pour that no-matter-what love into my teenager. So I am able to do a little better with the dawning of the new day. So I am able to apologize to my teenager, to seek forgiveness by admitting my shortcomings, and to try again. To try again knowing I likely will stumble yet again. But I take comfort and even confidence in knowing love truly is a choice as well as an action. I allow myself to love in small bits, moment-by-moment, choosing to see what truly matters about the relationship even in the strains of colds or other challenging circumstances. And I am grateful for the opportunity to relearn the ways of loving others well, including and especially my teenagers. Because they deserve my best and I can trust God to help me provide that each day and moment by moment.