ALT-6 Views on Marrying Young
It seems like a conspiracy, it seem like all my friends are getting married. It seem like only yesterday we were hanging out together at school, now they are married. Are 20 years olds really ready to settle down? I think not, these are the times when we are suppose to be living it up, partying, and whatnot.
Two years ago my very close friend told me that she was engaged, even though I was somewhat happy for her, I could not help but think that she was too young to be considering marriage. So, I did what any good friend would do, I sat her down, and I asked her if she was really ready to commit to something as big as marriage. Her response was that I was jealous because no body wanted to marry me. On the contrary someone did propose to me that same year, even though I considered it, I concluded that I was too young for such a commitment, and that I was not sure I could live the rest of my life kissing someone with halitosis. I went away to Trinidad and Tobago for six months, and when I got back she told me that she tied the knot.
It as been two years, she is 20 years old, pregnant, and wants a divorce. Now, she is complaining that she is not in love with her husband, and she does not go anywhere anymore; all she does these days is go to work, and clean the house. When she was telling me about her problems I started to wonder, are we marrying too young, and are we fooled by what we think is love. In order for me to get my answer, I had to analyze the thing we call love.
What is love? Over the past decade or so, the word love has grown to have many definitions, but can we truly define what love really is? Think about it. According to the World English dictionary, the word love has been defined as, " to feel tender affections for somebody such as a close relative or friend, or for something such as a place, an ideal, or an animal," or " to feel desire for somebody: to feel romantic and sexual desire and longing for somebody".
Even if these definitions were true , how do we know that we really love someone? According to the Bible, Jesus loved us so much, he chose to die for us, to save us from sin. I used this analogy because I wanted to bring across a point. Would you die for someone you claim to love? Would someone die for you? Okay maybe it's a bit extreme, because we are human, and we are selfish, but think about it though, would we die for somebody we love?It is ironic how we claim to love someone, but when the true test of honor comes we fail them. For example; You find a good man or woman, he or she treats you right, he or she adores you, and a couple of months after he or she is expressing their love for you. Shortly you get married, start a family, and he or she still have much love for you, but one day he or she falls short, and he or she cheats on you. What do you do? I'll tell you what you would do, file for a divorce, and never look back. Is that really love, or deep infatuation?
Better yet, lets examine the human beings that we came from, our parents. How much do they really love us? To really discuss this, I'll have to get a bit personal. A few years ago my father told me that he loved me to death, a couple of weeks after something happened that made me realize that it is real easy to say the words I love you, but it's very hard to show. When the true test of honor came, my father chose his wife over me. Then there was my mother, she never told me that she loved me ever, but she didn't have to because showed it, but how deep is her love for me? Would she die for me, like Jesus did for the world. Well, I think she would kill for me (operative word think).
Over the past number of weeks I've been analyzing this word love on a whole new perspective. Brother Ron Smith, of the Bronx Church of Christ, help me draw more light to the matter with his sermon, " What God joined together."He explained that there are three types of love:
1. The I.F. love.2. The B.E.C.A.U.S.E love.3. The I.N.S.P.I.T.E O.F. love.
The I.F. love is given only if certain requirement are met. For example; If he buys you a new car, or if she is a homemaker.While the B.E.C.A.U.S.E love is given because of what the person does for you, or because of what the person have. For example; Because he is good in bed, or she does that for me.Now, the I.N.S.P.I.T.E O.F. love is the one that I like the most of the three. The I.N.S.P.I.T.E O.F. love is loving a person in spite of a fault or flaw, it's an unselfish love. For example; Jesus died for us in spite of our sins. This type of love would fit perfectly with 1 Corinthians: 13 vs. 4-7.
How does one get to this kind of love? One might ask. I figured if one should get to this kind of love, one would have to grow in love, not fall in it. We always talk about falling in love, but I always say that if we fall in love we can fall right back out of love. You see my friends, I believe this is what is wrong with the world when it comes to love, the whole act of falling in love. People think that love comes easy, but it don't. Let me tell what comes easy, "Infatuation", this is what is confused for love most of the time. This is how I think the phrase in love comes from, when in fact we are deeply infatuated with the person. In order to separate the two we must take the time to know someone. You see, infatuation and love is very similar, you almost never know the difference. Is there a difference? Yes there is, a big difference in fact, infatuation is a phase, and love is eternal. The point I am trying to make is, in order to develop true, pure , in spite of love for some one, we have to grow in love with a person, we have to take the time to get to know a person, in order for us to accept their faults.
Love is the deep emotion, one feels or develop for a person over time, in spite of their imperfection. If you can't look past a person in imperfection you do not love them, bottom line.
After this extensive analyzation I concluded that if young people were going to commit to marriage we would have to be absolutely sure that we can separate love from infatuation. Secondly, we should have an in spite love for the person, we are going to married. For example; If I really loved the fellow that proposed to me two years ago, I would accept is proposal in spite of his halitosis.
My friend had what I called the because love for her husband. The because love is when you love somebody because they can do something for your benefit, or because they are rich, or because he or she is good in bed. In my friend case, she loves her husband because he is well endowed.
She is not the only friend that is complaining about there marriage, I have a friend that is married only six months now, and already she is complaining that she hates her husband. The point is, even though marriage is a good thing, these people are marrying too young.
Honestly I think that young men, and women are not taking the time to get to know eachother, and truly love each other. That is why so many marriages are ending up in divorce these days. Yes, I do hope to get married one day, but for now I am just going to take the time to know my boyfriend, and see if I am going to develop an in spite of love for him; if not I 'll move on to the next candidate, and try to find that love. Young people, take the time to know each other first; people don't fall in love they grow in love, and in order to do that you need time.
