Love is…

The internet has fallen in love with those cute comics that describe what love is. Too often I find one on social media and instantly share it with my husband with the message, “This is SO us!” What these comics have taught me is that love can be defined by various actions, feelings, and circumstances.

Love may look different in my marriage from the way it looks in yours. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it means that we cannot compare our levels of love with our displays of love. Your husband may show love to you by surprising you with flowers, but I shouldn’t say my husband doesn’t love me because he doesn’t buy me flowers. My husband shows love to me by crafting the perfect date night for us.

Lately, I’ve discovered that love is defined differently not only in each couple, but also in each season of marriage. Here is a tribute to my 22 months of marriage using the “love is…” phrases that have described each season we’ve spent together:

When we started dating
Love is telling me that I make everything better
Love is buying me a smoothie when I have my wisdom teeth pulled
Love is walking around Burns Park
Love is unintentionally matching when we both decide to wear orange
Love is sitting and talking in Starbucks until the manager kicks us out at closing
Love is surprising each other with the perfect date night
Love is saying everything through our kisses
Love is being comfortable enough to completely and totally be myself with you

When we got engaged
Love is in the simple things
Love is juggling our time with each side of the family
Love is racing to my side when I tell you I feel like I’m going to throw up
Love is sitting with me and holding me through a panic attack
Love is counting down the hours until I see you again
Love is getting over my ginormous fear of flying when you needed me the most
Love is letting you cry on my shoulder when you hear the news that Papa died
Love is working on our future marriage together

Our first year of marriage
Love is holding your hand and praying on our wedding day
Love is seeing you at the other end of the aisle waiting for me
Love is being surrounded by people but only having eyes for you
Love is forgetting every guy who has ever hurt me, because only you matter now
Love is making room for discomfort
Love is becoming one
Love is cooking dinner together
Love is holding nothing back
Love is listening to me complain
Love is showing me off to your friends
Love is counting down the hours until we can go home from work and be together again

Our second year of marriage
Love is providing for me
Love is making my priorities your priorities
Love is letting me vent and express myself
Love is working overtime so we can take a vacation next year
Love is respecting me and listening to me, even if it doesn’t make sense to you
Love is encouraging me to pursue my dreams
Love is building the foundation for our future together
Love is working toward goals that we have established as a couple

In conclusion, it would be unwise to compare how Lenny shows me love now to how he showed it to me when we first started dating. Ultimately, his feelings for me haven’t changed, and our love is truly based on providing for one another’s needs and helping each other be more of who God wants us to be. We have both grown tremendously, and we’ve learned how to love in different ways.

How do you show love in this season? Is it different from how you were when you were dating or in another season of your relationship?

Photo by Elena Taranenko on Unsplash