Love is Patient
February 5th, 2010 | 
Author: Ahhh, love is in the air. Yes, it is upon us once again. February, the month dedicated to the one emotion that can incite wars, produce Hollywood blockbusters, and cause even the most levelheaded of us to “act a fool,” as the kids say. Love. I love love. And usually, I love the month of February because it means the celebration of love. It also means chocolate and flowers. I love love, but I also really love chocolate and flowers.
Yet, this February I find myself not to be in my normal state of jubilation as I usually am this time of year. It is, of course, directly related to the fact that my love, the one I want to celebrate love with, and the one from whom I would love to receive chocolate and flowers, is deployed. When you find yourself in this state as a military wife, that once exciting celebration of love quickly can turn into a nasty reminder that you are alone on a day that is meant to be shared.
I’ve really been thinking about this a lot lately. How do we as military spouses navigate the sometimes murky waters of relationships when much of our relationship is spent apart? Relationships require time together, and that is something that is often in a dangerous deficit for us military folk. The world is ready to give us answers that are both unhealthy and wrong. Their answers seem to revolve around us making impetuous choices that seek to destroy any semblance of true love. So, in an effort to answer this question, I had to go to the One source that would tell me truth.
When you want to know the truth about love, your best bet on any day is to go straight to 1 Corinthians 13. This is the definition of love. While I know this to be true for regular people, I wanted to find the definition for those of us who love a military man. I didn’t have to read too far. In fact, I didn’t even have to go past the first three words of verse 4:
“Love is patient…” 1 Corinthians 13:4 NIV
The word patience in the verse means to “be long-spirited,” or to endure “longsuffering” (Strong’s Greek Lexicon). Long spirited, longsuffering, endurance. No other words can best describe what military marriage needs most of all, nor can any other definition reveal what love means to those in the military. Endurance defined is “the fact or power of enduring or bearing pain, hardships, etc.; the ability or strength to continue or last, especially despite fatigue, stress, or other adverse conditions.”
When we stepped in front of our God, our family, and our friends and pledged our love, we said that we would continue to love our partner despite “fatigue, stress, or other adverse conditions.” Perhaps more so than our civilian counterparts, we have the opportunity with each and every separation to show the patience and endurance that love is supposed to have. Even in times when it can be painful to watch as others rejoice, we are given the chance to truly live God’s definition of love through our patience. Patience in the waiting for our love to return. Patience in the stressors of military life. Patience in the endurance that we as a military spouse have to maintain. It can be hard, I know, but when we love in accordance with His word, it produces a love worth celebrating any time of year.
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such a good post. last year my husband was deployed on valentine’s day and it is an awful reminder of hard the military life can be at times. but God carried me through and he will carry you through as well.