Is love enough?

Last week on my 25^th anniversary Jim and I had the opportunity once again to speak on our adoption and therapeutic parenting techniques we have learned at the MAP Class panel night.    I had someone in the adoption community upon hearing that it was our anniversary ask me "What is the secret to a successful marriage?"  After reflecting for a moment on the conversations that had just taken place, I answered “the same thing it takes to have a successful adoption.”  I have been reflecting upon that a lot since. 

We marry, we adopt, we have children….all because we love and feel we have enough love to share but what happens when that love is not enough?  What about those times when you still love, but you hurt even more?   What about when our love is not returned?  How do we continue?

My husband and I are blessed to have each other, but it would be a complete lie to say that our love conquers all our insecurities, faults, and hurts.   There are times I liken it to two porcupines trying to hug.  The love is there, but we just poke holes all through each other.  Our hurts get in the way, they cause more hurts, they can even cause complete devastation if we allow them to fester. 

My son came to us after 11 years of hurts.  Much like an infant, his every thought is self-motivated.   His thoughts, his actions, and his conversations are all about how he can get what it is he wants.  He manipulates….It’s how he learned to survive.  He does not know how to properly express how he is feeling and many times it comes out in surliness, sometimes anger and sometimes even rage.  It can be hard with a baby and sometimes we feel overwhelmed trying to meet their needs, be understanding but firm with their wants and dealing with their frustration when we don’t know why they're crying.  It becomes even harder with a child who can speak and “should know better”.   The fact is…he doesn’t.  I’m not even sure how aware he is about how self-centered or manipulative he is.   It is just something he has always done.   He is getting better, but for the most part, he is incapable of caring for others outside of himself because he is so used to having to be his complete support system all by himself.   He needed to learn how to self soothe from infancy.  He needed to learn how to detach his emotions from others and focus on the only person he felt he could really depend on. He needed to learn techniques to get the things that he needed or wanted out of others when they did not choose to provide for him.

 “You know when I sit and when I rise; You perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; You are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue You know it completely, O Lord.” Psalm 139:2-4 

Knowing my sons past, makes it possible to understand why he does the things he does.  I can separate my emotion from his actions and choose not take it personally.  I know his hurts cause his behavior and I can be supportive instead of angry. I’m not saying that this is easy. It’s not….It is HARD, especially on the days he is especially moody and angry, and darn near impossible on those days his anger turns to full blown rage.  I have to remind myself of where this is coming from.  I have to forcefully separate my emotion.   I need to rely on other sources to fill any of my needs to be loved and accepted, because he is just not capable.  This keeps me sustained while dealing with his hurts

“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us”  - Romans 5:8

God’s Love and Ours

“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.  This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.  This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.  Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.  No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us”  - 1 John 4:7-12

This brings me back to marriage….in my marriage, I do not have the privilege of knowing all of my husband’s past.   I do know that he has a loving family.  I guess that makes it harder sometimes to understand his behavior and I am sure he has a hard time understanding mine.  The principals are the same though.  His hang ups are his….mine are mine.  We try not to take it personally when we lash out at each other and instead give each other “space and grace” until we can come together and talk it out.   I need to depend on God to fulfill my need to be loved and accepted (easy to say…hard to do!).   My husband can help to fulfill those needs but he cannot be the sole or even main provider.  He cannot possibly meet those needs within me that are designed for God Himself.   What I receive from my husband is bonus!  The love and grace I give to my husband and children then is not dependent upon what my husband or child is able to provide me but from what God provides me. Jesus’s example for his bride is a sacrificial love; the kind of love we are to have for our one another.  

So as for the question….Is love enough?  Human love is imperfect; conditional…God’s love is perfect, absolute and unconditional!   If we count upon each other for our source of love, happiness, and acceptance, we are sadly lacking…We can always count upon God’s sustaining grace, love and acceptance!

Cast your cares on the Lord
    and he will sustain you;
he will never let
    the righteous be shaken. -  Psalm 55:22