Love Is Not Love...

I have been thinking recently about love.  'Tis the season.  And it seems I am not the only one thinking about love.  Little things have been popping up here and there.  Their cumulative effect has been to dislodge my emotions and stir me to confront some lies I've been believing.

I used to believe in fairy tales; in happily ever afters.  I am a fan on Facebook of the group, "I blame Disney for my high expectations of men."  :)  What little girl doesn't want a handsome prince to ride in, fall madly in love with her, declare her to be the only one for him, swoop her up onto the horse with him, and ride off into the sunset toward a life of never-ending bliss?

Real life isn't like that.  I get it.  The prince has smelly feet; the princess snores.  I am not so naive as to think married life is perfect.  As most of you know, I've lived the married life and it ain't always pretty.  But I'm afraid I have swung too far to the other side.  Having been hurt by someone who made a commitment to me and called it love, I am now skeptical that anyone can ever truly love another.  Sure, people "fall in love," but they just as easily "fall out of love" and move on to the next person.  Does true love even exist anymore?

I am going to venture to say yes; it just doesn't look like the same thing we've been calling love.  As Shakespeare knew, "Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove: O no! it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken" (Sonnet 116).  I read this quote this week: "Love means to love that which is unlovable; or it is no virtue at all" (G.K. Chesterton).

Love exists.  I believe that.  I believe God has loved us lavishly and continues to love us with an everlasting love.  I rest secure in that.  But my belief in the fairy tale where my handsome prince will love me until the day I die has been shattered.  Commitment means nothing in today's world.  "I do" means "Until something better comes along."  Talk is cheap.  I can't help it; I just expect to be let down.

And this realization about myself almost makes me weep.  I don't want to be a skeptic.  I don't want to live every day waiting for the next rejection to come.  I want to believe in people like those Andrew Peterson talks about in his song below, Dancing In the Mine Fields, who promise forever to each other and then, when things get tough, stand on that promise and refuse to waver.  I just have a hard time believing that anyone's up for that nowadays.  And it breaks my heart.