Faith-filled Friday: Love is...

Dear Crushers,
I love that you read my blog and that some of you even take the time to comment on it. I love it.

I love food, obviously, or I wouldn't be writing this blog. I love the feeling that you get when you serve a meal to someone and you can tell they enjoy it.

I love my family, my friends, my church family, and lot of other people. However, since I am traveling to Las Vegas this weekend with my husband to celebrate the marriage of our friends, Ryan and Christine, this post is going to be a mushy one dedicated to the MR.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. - 1 Corinthians 13:4-8

There's a reason that this passage is read a many weddings. It's because that's one of the best definitions of love that I've ever heard next to the love that it's modeled after: John 3:16. We should love others how God loves us. Although we may try and fall short, it should still be our goal. I think that overall Steve and I have this love thing down, I mean, we should. We're married and plan to stay that way for a long time.

Then again, in the love-longevity game, we're novices. My maternal grandparents were married for over 70 years. My paternal grandparents were married just shy of 50 years when my grandma died. Both of Steve's sets of grandparents reached 50 years of marriage. Both of our parents' marriages are over 30 years and still going. They have this love thing down, although not perfectly, it's pretty close.

Here are a few things that we've learned from all those years of marriage we've been blessed to witness:

1. Love is doing the chore that the other person hates.
2. Love is cooking special meals or food that the other person likes.
3. Love is killing large jumping bugs for your wife.
4. Love is letting your wife warm up her freezing feet at night by sticking them next to your toasty feet.
5. Love is wearing a tie when you really don't want to dress up.
6. Love is climbing a mountain on your honeymoon.
7. Love is saving the last bite of ice cream for your wife.
8. Love is bringing your wife Kleenex when she watches Hallmark movies.
9. Love is smiling politely every time you hear your wife tell the same joke and laughing anyway.
10. Love is buying your wife Lucky Charms when she's feeling sick. 
11. Love is holding your wife's hand when she's sad.
12. Love is rearranging furniture in your house for no good reason except that your wife wanted to see how the couch looked over there to the left, no more to the left, no maybe back there.

See? Steve's got this down. I'm a lucky lady. We could not be happier for our friends who are getting married this weekend. We wish them all the joy and love that they can bring to each other. And we know they will because they've got this love thing down. They know what love is.