A loving marriage is the foundation needed to train our children in the correct definition of love. As they grow and become teenagers looking for
love and eventually choosing a spouse to love for a lifetime, it is critical that they trust God and know the sacrificial side of true love.
LOVE: better, worse, rich, poor, healthy, sick, and whatever else life may bring. On that perfect wedding day, there is no possible way to even guess all that could happen in a lifetime of loving each other.
On my wedding day, May 27th 1983, I promised to love James T. Lozano until death do us part. Isn’t that what everyone promises, before God, the minister and the well dressed wedding guests? He was my perfect dream guy; handsome, funny, hardworking, romantic, and a Christian, with a wonderful family. We were head over heals in love.
We are all “in love” when we get married so what’s the problem? We just don’t understand love.
I felt confident that I understood love. I had memorized 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 and it was sung beautifully at our wedding, word for word.
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud, it is not rude, 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, and always perseveres.” Now fast forward with me 19 years later. April 2002, this was the year that I really began to know what it meant to LOVE my husband. We had 2 girls and 2 boys, and a successful business. We were very involved in church and had a lovely home. I was preparing to celebrate our anniversary when my husband surprised me. “I don’t love you anymore,” he said. “I have filed for a divorce and I am moving out this weekend.” I was blindsided, I didn’t even know that we were having marital problems. It was a nightmare. A trial and a test that I never imagined could ever happen to me. He had been in a relationship with a woman that he had reconnected with at his high school reunion the year before. I had no idea and the shock was so horrific that I was literally trembling.
That was the beginning of my “Unintended Journey”, my journey to know real, genuine LOVE. A love that had nothing to do with feelings or circumstances and wasn’t about my humanity, but about God.
My children and I pressed into God and His Word to understand love in a new and real way.
1 John 4:7,
“Let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”I recalled my wedding vows and this definitely fit into the “worse” category. The kids and I spent the next two months studying all of the scriptures on love and forgiveness.
James, the love of my life and the father of my children returned to a loving home on June 15th 2002. Love keeps no record of wrongs and as I’m writing this, it seems like it’s not even my life. The memory of this chapter is now so dim. One thing that I know for sure is that God’s Word is true and my family can all testify that LOVE NEVER FAILS!
