Can’t Buy Her Love

Posted by parkejladd on Feb 16, 2010 in Featured {Article}, Slider | 8 comments

My wife signs her letters to me,

With More Love Than You Can Imagine,

Quinn.

I wonder sometimes how she loves so deeply. There are no logical explanations for her love; no cognitive reasons to account for her compassion. Outwardly, I have very little of anything of great significance to counteract my reconstructed, disfigured heart. There’s no gleaming band-aid to cover the torn fabric of my past; no fine silk to patch my jagged cracks or golden glue to repair my frayed edges. A self-possessed mess I was. A grace dependent mess I am. Young and overly restless, inexperienced and developing in love, aggressively competitive and plagued by pride. I’m lacking in excess cash and tanned Hollywood looks. Everything I own has been given to me, and my pursuit is not for more.

My shoes don’t shine. I’m not a corporate, career-driven man or charismatic, flashy leader. I can’t buy diamonds for her ears, pearls for her wrist, or Italian leather for her belongings. I can’t guarantee her a life of comfort, a white picket fence, or a path of ease. Lennon said, “You can’t buy me love”, and he was right, I certainly can’t buy hers.

The crazy thing is that she understood this from the beginning, and still she chose to love me…

Love is often challenging. Many times the potent side effects associated with loving imperfect people cause explosive, destructive agony. Many of us have been dragged to the brink by what we thought was love. We watched as it packed its bags, loaded the car, and drove away into the night. We observed, through teary eyes, as what was supposed to be love abused us with words and brute strength, betrayed us, or found solace in another man’s bed, another woman’s arms. Our corrupt security in human love raped us, tortured us, sold us into slavery, neglected us, starved us, and stole from us. We experienced so called love and determined it was no longer appropriate to consider; no longer a part of our plan; no longer necessary.

You won’t find these all too common side effects of imperfect love floating around the writers room at Hallmark. You won’t find tension and brokenness wrapped in pink, plastic foil; squeezed into heart shaped containers; and exchanged for dollars and cents. You won’t find these images of broken love embroidered on cuddly teddy bears or typed on red, helium-filled balloons. Real love doesn’t smell like roses, taste like cherries, or look like a Pinot Noir picnic by the lake at sunset. They don’t sell real-life love at your local drug store, stashed away between milk chocolates and cheap, sparkling wine.

And the baffling thing is that love consistently carries beyond the pain, beyond our flawed impressions, and beyond what we thought we could never move past…

There are times when standing on our own strength is–as the heaviness of love gently presses in–impossible. There are times when Love is almost too wide to conceive, too deep to grasp, and too long to gaze upon. In the midst of pain or joy alike, we long for hearts capable of comprehending and embracing love in all its fullness and truth.

Another famous John wrote, “God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence…There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” The more I learn about love the less I’m able to persuade myself to live with fear. I find it resoundingly interesting that pure, perfect love cannot coexist with enslavement to fear. That in the attempt to genuinely love, my life will likewise rid itself of obeying a spirit of fear. The opposite of love may be defined as hate, but our hate is usually rooted in something far more fierce–fear.

My love for my wife, no matter how strong or intentional it may be, will never be pure or perfect enough to alleviate her life of fear, and neither will hers be for me. My love cannot deeply transform. My love cannot, on its own merit, move her to live compassionately; open her eyes to see all people as equal; and love everyone regardless of anything. My love, on its own, is not lovely enough. I know that my wife is able to love me in spite of my flaws because her love is rooted in another Love that is exponentially more profound, mysterious, and perfect than my own. Her love is rooted in the One who drives out fear, who offers and freely gives perfect love, and enables her to love me and those around her more freely. The love we share has very little to do with the love that we can give to each other on our own and everything to do with the love we have received from the giver and endorser of perfectly, flawless love. Truly, it is a love that we cannot fully imagine.