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Is Love Enough?

Written By Ashanti Chambers

 One of my favorite songs of all time is “Fairytales” from the soulful Anita Baker.  In this song, the singer talks about all the stories young girls are told about meeting prince charming and how reality kicks in and shuts that dream down.  She starts off with this happy upbeat tune about what love should be and how from childhood, we receive these different images and speeches on what love will feel and look like.  As the song moves toward it’s ending, Anita brings up the harsh realities of what real love is; the untold stories your parents didn’t want you know.  I never really understood her lyrics and those lyrics didn’t really make sense until I became an adult.  My philosophy then was, if I love you, and you loved me, that was enough to sustain a relationship but is love enough?  Even in the bible, it mentions how love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things……….well…you get the point. But after a lot of heartache over the years, disappointment and one failed marriage that I should have never entered and another failed marriage where my spouse walk out………………I’d come to believe that……well…..love may not be enough; at least in my opinion. Now I know my story won’t be like yours and every one from the bible scholars to newlyweds to even teenage “puppy love” couples will denounce my statement as someone who just hasn’t found the right person, or someone who will never experience real love or even pin me as needing more time in church to really understand that love is what makes the world go round.  

Don’t get me wrong, love has it place and should not be excluded or substituted for money, lust, revenge or something else it was not intended to be. Love is what I feel when I look down at my children each night before they go to sleep.  Love is what I feel when I know God forgives me for my sins even though I don’t deserve it.  I get the grasp of its importance so please don’t think I am negating it.  However, in terms of finding that one you can call your own, that special someone who you feel you will spend the rest of your life with…..the one you can share your innermost secrets with…….I wonder can love truly be the glue that will sustain and maintain a relationship above all else?

Back to my Anita memories, “She said he’d slay all dragons, defeat the evil prince” is the line that Anita Baker sang that made me believe without a shadow of a doubt when I find the man she described, I will love him for life and no matter what we would be together forever.

“You never came to save me, you let me stand alone, Out in the wilderness, alone in the cold……..….my fantasy is over, my life must now begin……………”   Well, I thought, even when the fantasy was over, love will be enough for the rest of the journey.  In my twenties, I admit it was enough for me.  Through the lying and the cheating, I still loved him.  Through the hurtful and painful actions (mutually done to each other), I… loved… him, I really did and that was enough.  He said he loved me.  He said he really did.  But all the love we said we had for each other, all the emotions that went in to “I do’s”,  all of the countless “I love you” on the phone, and before we went to bed and before work and when we prayed and all the times we said it or gestured it when it was all said and done LOVE didn’t sustain us LOVE didn’t maintain us , love got a good laugh at my expense and didn’t wait around to help through the pain.  Love just wasn’t enough. It seemed like love coupled with “do what I want” or “meet my expectations” would be enough to last. But love just didn’t seem like it was enough.  

My current husband (yes, I’ve been married three times, don’t give up on me yet) says he love me. I love him that’s what I tell him. Not every day is paradise though and many people equate love to having a jolly ole time and no disappointments but LOVE is be able to stay in commitment to your partner when things don’t go seemingly as planned.  There are arguments, disappointments, some hurtful words said out of sheer emotion that we are still growing to work on.  Some days, I have looked him in the eyes after becoming so frustrated with him about something he did and I told him “I don’t think love is enough for me anymore.  The older I get, I need love coupled with you fitting in my big box of expectations” (well the part about expectations I didn’t say but looking back now; that was the message I was trying to relay).  I could see the hurt in his face but, I needed to keep it honest with him. Love was cute in my twenties, but in my thirties, not merely enough.  

The last time I stated this to my husband was about two months ago. As the words “Love is just not enough for me anymore” slipped off my lips, I was immediately silenced by this gut wrenching feeling that instantly caused me to stop speaking.  I couldn’t stop this feeling so I stopped talking.  I could feel God’s disapproval with this statement and for the first time, I felt a sense of shame for my words.  I thought about John 3:16 “For God so Loved the World, that He gave His Only Son” This kept ringing in my ear until it finally hit me that if God’s love was enough to send His Son down to die for me, just because he LOVED me, than how dare I have to couple love with my box of expectations and unrealistic demands in order to be fulfilled?  It’s because He loves me that I can stop cramming my husband in my box of expectations and truly love the man that God made him to be.  Let’s face it, I am far from perfect and yet God still just wants to love me, no strings attached.  When I started to use my measuring stick to see if my ideology of love was the same as God, I realized I had this all wrong.  

Love never left me, love never failed me, love was there all the time through hurt and pain………love comforted me.  Love sometimes disciplined me, love humbled me.  Love never failed me.  In my immature and misunderstood ways, I failed love.  When I started to look outside myself, threw away my crazy expectations, found the purpose and the will to move past old pain, and truly got an understanding of 1 Corinthians 13:7 “It (Love) always protects, always trust, always hopes, always perseveres”, I came to find out that maybe I was wrong, maybe love is enough by itself. Of course we want to be with someone who fits into this perfect picture we have Picasso so nicely into our mind. But can we love even when the picture gets a tear or written on or worse, some of the ink starts to fade? Can I still love him even when he gets on my last nerve and I get on his?  Can I love him if he doesn’t bring me flowers anymore?  When he doesn’t say all the right things?  When he disappoints me, doesn’t understand me, or forgets what I think is important.  Can I love him even if I feel I am in this marriage alone?  When all of these questions come to my mind now, I use God’s measuring stick and not my own.  At this point in my life, I chose to love him, no matter what.  I chose to show him love, no matter what.  I’ve learned that loving him is enough for me because I am not doing it to meet my standards, but I am doing it to meet God’s standards.  The great thing about realizing that love is enough is that my actions and attitude change when I am with him.  I chose to love him, I get to love him and he gets to love me.   I have made this decision to love him with no strings attached, nothing coupled with it, and our marriage just seems to get better and better day by day.  I have released him from my expectations of what love is and we are both free to be who God made us.  

So yeah Anita, I didn’t necessarily find someone to slay all my dragons and defeat an evil prince.  I may have even stumbled upon a few poison apples with no magic potion or a horse with wings to fly and yet I’m still, I am in my fairytale my own paradise even.  I found my own serenity, my own definition of love, my measuring stick only defined by God. You will have to answer this question for yourself and choose your own measuring tool.  Just make sure whatever tool you choose to measure your answer with; it matches the rubric God has set for you.

                                                                                                             One of the greatest awakenings for me was when I came upon the realization that EVERYTHING that we go through in life has a significant purpose.  Every trial has a trail attached to it that leads to a triumphant finish, a “promised victory” if you will, considering we stay focused.

    We must know that in spite of everything we may be experiencing at the present time, the PURPOSE behind the struggle is BIG. Bigger than any circumstance, sickness, state of mind or being. The fact that you still remain is evidence enough that EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE OK.!

  Let’s be honest, most of us would have to admit that we have a natural aversion to suffering. It may not bother us so much when “bad” people suffer, but we often get bent out of shape when suffering happens to “good” people—especially to us! We think that life owes us happiness, comfort, wealth, and a bit of prosperity. So when life deals us a blow, it’s no wonder we are prone to “grow weary and lose heart.”

Thankfully the writer of Hebrews helps put things into perspective by instructing us to “consider” the suffering of Jesus. When we fully grasp the terrible suffering that Jesus Christ—the only perfect person to walk this planet—endured on our behalf, it makes all the difference.

It’s significant to note that Jesus knew exactly what was coming. The night before His death, He told His disciples, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer” (Luke 22:15, italics mine). I have often thought that it would have been a lot easier for Him to die a different way—something more sudden and less violent. Why was such deep agony required?

Jesus knew that suffering is part and parcel of Satan’s grip on our lives. Satan loves to bring it on, because he believes the more suffering he can throw at us, the more we will become defeated, discouraged, and disengaged from God. That’s his plan. And so the enemy threw the book at Jesus. Satan entered the heart of Judas, which meant that Jesus would suffer the bitter betrayal of a trusted friend. The kangaroo courts and crowds declared Jesus to be a criminal, beat and mocked Him, and inflicted terrible agony on Him. He stumbled up the cobblestone steps carrying His own cross, felt the stab of the sword in His side, the nails in His hands and feet, the thorns on His brow. He tasted suffering for us, and all the while Satan said, “Take that!”

What Satan did not know was that behind the scenes, God was working to use Jesus’ experience of suffering to turn the tables on Satan and defeat him through the suffering. The suffering of Jesus was a prelude to the ultimate defeat of sin, death, and hell.  Because He died on the cross and suffered for us, we too can be assured that in the depths of suffering there is the reality that victory will be God’s end game for us. So, when Satan heaps suffering on your life, you can be certain that God, who works all things together for good (Romans 8:28), is ready to turn the tables on Satan to bring victory out of defeat for you.

I don’t know about you, but I’m really thankful that Jesus was not only willing to die, but to defeat the stronghold of suffering in the process. He willingly walked into the arena of suffering in order to achieve complete, final victory over the ravaging effects of sin. And what’s more, He proved that there’s life beyond the grave.

  There’s a song that was written awhile back entitled “He’s Able”, that encourages us as a people to put our trust in God, because he’s able to do “just what he said” he’s capable and willing to fulfill his promises to us.  Being that we are made in his image, the lyrics of the song should serve as a reminder that, not only is God able, BUT SO ARE WE

  So don’t miss the significance in your time of suffering! When Satan throws his best stuff at you, because of Jesus you can believe that God is both able and ready to turn the tables on him—and to bring you out with hands held high in victory!

A good friend to me is someone who is bold enough to confront you. Today we have people that claim to be your friend but are afraid to tell you that you’re wrong at the risk of losing your friendship. A friend can confront you in a loving way letting you know they love you but, you need to work on this and that or you’ve got an attitude problem, or an anger problem that’s keeping you from obtaining your best.  A good friend will tell you when you’re trying to be something you’re not.  My point is good friends can say tough things to you because they care enough about you and all of your crazy to critique you. Friends will let you know when you get on their nerves. Honestly, people that really love you will invest in you at the risk of falling out with you all because they want you to be better, so they tell you the truth NO MATTER WHAT!  Now we all have those “friends” that say what you want to hear.  I’ve seen it happen several times where many great business, companies, churches, families fail  because for years and from the genesis they stand on lies, sugar-coated truths ,because no one has the nerve to say those tough things that need to be said to the person that it needs to be said to.  Criticism is an important thing, I believe that criticism that goes up especially in business or groups of people that work together, is better than criticism that goes down because that is a complaint. All criticism isn’t bad and just because you don’t agree with something doesn’t deem you as a trader. From a different perspective, people that speak well of you all the time you cannot trust that they like you but that’s an article for a different Sunday.  Most times you cannot evaluate a person based on the message they bring or the nice things they say about you or the works you’ve done.  Many of us don’t allow criticism or can’t handle criticism because we’re scared to confront some truths we just don’t want to believe about ourselves. You have to allow people in your life that will challenge what you believe to be the greatest thing ever and tell you it wasn’t as great as it could have been only to produce the maximum of greatness within yourself.  Just because one brings something negative or something that is hard to hear doesn’t mean they don’t love you  it could mean that they are making an investment into your future or your destiny and care enough to  risk your disdain by confronting you with truths you may not be receptive of but need to hear.