like a seal on your arm; for love is as strong as death,
its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire,
like a mighty flame. Song of Solomon 8:6
Above is the picture of the beginning of my parents journey of love and marriage. This is the beauty of the beginning of their love. Below is a picture and the example of the bond that joined their hearts as one and rings sealed on their fingers that represents unwavering devotion and love of 42 years. This is love fully lived out. Love that is stronger than death itself.
This picture will remain sealed in my heart forever and will help to remind me what true love looks like. In sickness and in health. Till death do we part. Covenant words that really meant something to my mom and dad. A covenant promise that my mom and dad kept on this Earth with every breath and every fiber of their being until my mom took her very last breath and went to be with Jesus on Jan, 3 2016.
I would have to be honest with you and say that I hadn’t really recognized what was right in front of me all of my life. Familiarity blinds you to what is important at times and I think this was the case with me. Things that are in front of you and part of the “normalcy” of life does not seem so important. You can miss the gift and treasured examples that God places right in front of you. I always knew my parents loved each other.
The depth of love I did not fully comprehend until I watched the short video I posted below of my mom and dad a few days before she passed. I can see such deep love. Not because it was the most happy of times I had ever seen them in. Obviously not. It was because I could see the beauty of love and longevity of faithfulness in the midst of pain and brokenness.
What do you see?
I see love magnified. Love that goes beyond the natural love of two people. I see a love that is greater. A love that is a true covenant between my parents and sealed by God. I see an example of love that will cause you to say. Yes! In my life I will choose to love my spouse in sickness and health. Even until death I will choose to love you. God’s love will help to keep hearts sealed and bound by the promise of covenant. He will help you to continue to commit to love even when you have to carry out the covenant fully.
It is a love that represents a love that would lay itself down for another person. I see a love that represents God’s love for us. Love that illustrates that he would stay right with you when you are at your most vulnerable and when you cannot take care of yourself. He will stay with you and never leave you. No mater how hard it gets. I see a love that conquers death. Love that is strong as death and will continue. The same example that God gave for us when he sent his son to conquer death so that we will not have to be separated from him or those we love in the end….. I see that love.
25 For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her 26 to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word. 27 He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault. 28 In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies. For a man who loves his wife actually shows love for himself. 29 No one hates his own body but feeds and cares for it, just as Christ cares for the church. 30 And we are members of his body.31 As the Scriptures say, “A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.” 32 This is a great mystery, but it is an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one. 33 So again I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.- Ephesians 5:25-33
