{"id":12,"date":"2016-01-20T13:56:00","date_gmt":"2016-01-20T19:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inspireandencourage.com\/?p=12"},"modified":"2024-08-24T14:57:22","modified_gmt":"2024-08-24T19:57:22","slug":"a-love-as-strong-as-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inspireandencourage.com\/?p=12","title":{"rendered":"A love as strong as death"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><em>Place me like a seal over your heart,&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/em><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><em>like a seal on your arm;&nbsp;for love is as strong as death,&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/em><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><em>its jealousy\u00a0unyielding as the grave.\u00a0It burns like blazing fire,\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><em>like a mighty flame.&nbsp;Song of Solomon 8:6<\/em><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20190601151112\/http:\/\/www.inspireandencourage.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Mom-and-Dad-Wedding-Day.jpg\"><\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">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&nbsp;of the bond&nbsp;that&nbsp;joined their hearts as one&nbsp;and rings sealed on their&nbsp;fingers that represents unwavering devotion and love of 42 years. This is love fully&nbsp;lived out. Love that&nbsp;is stronger than death itself.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">This picture will remain sealed in my heart forever and will help&nbsp;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.&nbsp;A covenant promise that my mom and&nbsp;dad kept&nbsp;on this Earth with every breath and every fiber of their&nbsp;being until my mom took her very last breath and went to be with Jesus&nbsp;on Jan, 3 2016.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20190601151112\/http:\/\/www.inspireandencourage.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/mom-and-dad.jpg\"><\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">I would have to be honest with you&nbsp;and say that I hadn\u2019t really recognized what was right in front of me&nbsp;all of my life.&nbsp;Familiarity blinds you to what is important&nbsp;at times&nbsp;and I think this was the case with me. Things that&nbsp;are&nbsp;in front of you and part of the&nbsp;\u201cnormalcy\u201d of life does not seem so&nbsp;important.&nbsp;You can miss the&nbsp;gift and treasured examples that God places right in front of you. I always knew my parents loved each other.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The depth of love I&nbsp;did not fully comprehend until I watched&nbsp;the short video I posted below of my mom and dad a few days before she passed.&nbsp; I can see such deep&nbsp;love. Not because it was the most happy of times I had ever seen them in. Obviously&nbsp;not. It was because&nbsp;I could see the beauty of love and longevity of faithfulness&nbsp;in the midst of pain and brokenness.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What do you see?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-video\"><video height=\"360\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 640 \/ 360;\" width=\"640\" controls src=\"https:\/\/inspireandencourage.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Mom-and-Dad.mp4\"><\/video><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">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&nbsp;true covenant&nbsp;between my parents&nbsp;and sealed by God. I see an example of love that will cause you to say. Yes! In my life&nbsp;I will choose to love my spouse&nbsp;in sickness and health. Even until death I will&nbsp;choose to love you. God\u2019s love will help to keep hearts sealed&nbsp;and bound by the promise of covenant. He&nbsp;will help you to continue to commit&nbsp;to&nbsp;love even when you have to carry out the covenant fully.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">It is a love that represents a love that would lay itself&nbsp; down for another person. I see a love that represents God\u2019s love for us.&nbsp;Love that&nbsp;illustrates that he would stay right with you when you are at your most vulnerable&nbsp;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.&nbsp;Love that is strong as death and will continue. The same example that God gave for us&nbsp;when he sent his son to conquer death so that we will not have to be separated from him or&nbsp;those we love in the end\u2026.. I see that love.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><em><sup>25&nbsp;<\/sup>For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her&nbsp;<sup>26&nbsp;<\/sup>to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God\u2019s word.&nbsp;<sup>27&nbsp;<\/sup>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.&nbsp;<sup>28&nbsp;<\/sup>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.&nbsp;<sup>29&nbsp;<\/sup>No one hates his own body but feeds and cares for it, just as Christ cares for the church.&nbsp;<sup>30&nbsp;<\/sup>And we are members of his body.<\/em>&nbsp;<em><sup>31&nbsp;<\/sup>As the Scriptures say, \u201cA man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.\u201d&nbsp;<sup>32&nbsp;<\/sup>This is a great mystery, but it is an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one.&nbsp;<sup>33&nbsp;<\/sup>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<\/em><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Place me like a seal over your heart,&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; like a seal on your arm;&nbsp;for love is as strong as death,&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; its jealousy\u00a0unyielding as the grave.\u00a0It&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","post-grid"],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inspireandencourage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inspireandencourage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inspireandencourage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspireandencourage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspireandencourage.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inspireandencourage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspireandencourage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inspireandencourage.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspireandencourage.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspireandencourage.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}