The Price of True Love

[Dianne Rosena Jones]

As a woman I’ve said many things, and heard many things, from other women about what they “will and will not” put up with from a man just to be in a relationship. Even Christian women have declared their eternal singleness if being in a relationship requires too much sacrifice, forgiveness, or pain. Funny thing is though, when I recall the story of the love that Jesus had for humankind it required sacrifice even until death. Now, am I implying that we should love someone who hurts us to the point of death, absolutely not! It would seem however, that despite all the Holy Ghost in this world, we are incapable of truly responding as Jesus would. He loved those who ultimately took his life. What I am implying is that many of us: women and men will never experience “true love” because we are incapable or unwilling to sacrifice any part of ourselves in order to stay committed to another person. We break our wedding vows quicker than a Lee Press-On nail. I’m just as guilty as the next. But let me ask you this. If we ascribe to the belief that the Bible is the Word of God and we truly understand the concept of agape, how can we exhibit that God-type of love [agape] towards perfect strangers, but we won’t even pretend to show that type of love towards the man or woman that God created just for you? Why does the scripture about forgiving someone over and over again, every single day, apply to others forgiving us, but doesn’t apply when we are the one required to do the forgiving? How is it, that we have categories for sin and consider some sins to be worst than others, especially when those sins are committed against us? Where is the category of sins chronicled in the Bible that justify our un-forgiveness? What scriptures have we found that allows us to pick and chose which sins we will pardon? Is not the liar as sinful as the person who overeats? Is not the whore due the same level of forgiveness received by the thief? How is it that the Bible mentions only one unpardonable sin, but we have tons of them? What if Jesus put our sins in categories and forgave us on the same level that we forgive others? If you believe that the forgiveness of sins impacts where you will spend eternity, will you make Heaven your home? My point is this, when it comes to “true love” commitment is only possible when forgiveness and sacrifice become the foundation of the relationship. Unconditional love [true love] requires continuous forgiveness and frequent sacrifices. For many of us, that’s a concept we will never be able to embrace and that’s sad. It’s sad that we can forgive complete strangers, but not those that we claim to love. If your love is contingent upon NEVER being hurt, betrayed, lied too, or cheated on; then you are looking for something that even Jesus Himself knew we were incapable of. He knew that in our fragile human state we would still hurt each other, lie and betray, and yes even cheat on each other. Am I trying to justify unscrupulous living: absolutely not! Only due to His sacrifice do we have an example of what great sacrifice true love really requires. If you’ve found “true love” then it requires great sacrifice and frequent forgiveness. If you believe that your sacrifice outweighs the love then maybe you owe it to yourself to cut your losses. However, before you cut your losses remember that I Corinthians 13:7 says, “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”