Real Love: Never Giving Up

We've all heard the expression, when the going gets tough, the tough get going. That doesn't mean they check out, doesn't mean they leave.

In fact, just the opposite. The Bible says, love is tenacious. Love never lets go. This is Family Life Today. Our hosts are Dave and Anne Wilson.

I'm Bob Lapine. You can find us online at familylifetoday.com. What does it take to cultivate tenacity in a marriage relationship? How do we bear all things and endure all things, believe all things, and keep hoping, even when things get tough? We'll talk more about that today. Stay with us. And welcome to Family Life Today. Thanks for joining us. We put the menu together.

You've done the shopping for this. I'm excited about the cooking together thing. Or did you say that's 2022? That's 2022.

Oh, okay. Oh, that'd be so fun. Let's do it this year.

If Anne wants to do it in 2021, we're doing it. Bob, what are you doing? I'm actually going to be... Oh yeah, you're going to be in Ohio.

I'm going to be teaching at a church in Ohio. We're doing a weekend conference on Valentine's Day. So I'm building into the lives of... That's really romantic, Bob. You've done this before, though, right? You've been out on Valentine's weekend where the two of you are working.

Many times. We're usually gone. Yeah. So we have to postpone. We have to make up for Valentine's Day on another day.

But you're living a lifestyle of love. We're going to check with Mary Ann to make sure that Bob does re-up on the day after or the week after. At the Lapine House every day is Valentine's Day. There you go. I do not think so. I wonder if Mary Ann would say that.

I hope that our listeners are making some kind of plans for this weekend. And I'm thinking about those who have been stressed, those who have maybe found themselves in isolation. They may not like each other. Yeah. So what do you do if Valentine's Day is coming and you just are not at a great place in your marriage? How do you deal with that? I like what you always say in your teaching that you go back, like in Revelation, you go back and do the things you used to do or you once did. Yeah. Revelation Chapter 2, the church at Ephesus that had lost its first love. Yeah.

Repent and do the things you did at first. And don't you think if a husband or a wife came to one another and said, look, I know we're in a tough place right now and we don't like each other right now. But I just want to dance with you in the kitchen.

Oh, is that what you were going to say? I was thinking, but maybe. Man, I'm getting ideas right now. She's telling me how to woo her. I'm thinking maybe you just say, maybe we could have dinner this weekend and let's talk about what do we need to unpack? Maybe we could take some steps forward.

Maybe some of our listeners have got the dates to remember box and they're going to do date one on Valentine's weekend. But find a couple of questions that can take you into the beginning stages of trying to unlock some of what you got locked up around. And I think sometimes you hear that you just there's this big sigh. I don't even know how to do that.

What questions. So maybe another idea could be maybe you just share a couple of things you appreciate about each other. And that that can be really healing.

It's almost a balm. And if you're at a place where even saying that to one another feels awkward, write it down. Yeah. Put a note, say again, I acknowledge that you're in a tough spot, but say I've been thinking about things I appreciate about you. And I just want you to know, I do appreciate these things and I want to try.

That's good. We're going to spend some time today reflecting on what the Bible has to say about love. And one of the things it says is that love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things and endures all things.

You could say it this way. Love is tenacious. It does not let go. In fact, for all of us in marriage, there are times when we have to hang on and just get through it and still keep breathing. And I think the Bible says that's what love does.

It bears, believes, hopes and endures. And so we're going to hear a session today from the Love Like You Mean It video series. This is actually session number nine of the ten sessions, and we talk about those four aspects of love in this session. We actually begin with some of the couples who were involved in helping with this series. We asked them if there were any honeymoon fail stories, and they shared a few with us. Oh, goodness. OK, one really good one is that I took this disposable panoramic camera with us and then another camera.

Well, I was shooting most of the pictures with the other camera and realized after our first week that I had no film in it. She was devastated. Yes.

Oh, go ahead. We got sick. Yeah, we both did. We went to Mazatlan, Mexico. We ate outside in a patio. It was just humid and we was getting bit up. And the next day we woke up sick. Both of us were running high fevers and we decided we had to cut the honeymoon short and go home. We didn't have a honeymoon. We had a choice. Either go on a honeymoon and move back with our mom or take the money and move into our own apartment. We took the money and moved into our own apartment. I was not moving in with my mom, so yeah. We did climb Duns River Falls in Jamaica and there was a point where the guide brought us to a pool and he wanted us all to hold hands and jump backwards into this pool.

Beautiful moment. We just finished climbing the whole thing. Yeah, and a bunch of couples went on ahead of us and it was our turn and I told the guy that I was not going to go backwards. And so Carlos did and I didn't. I just did.

And we held hands and like this, she let go and I went and fell and I was like, who went there? Bye. I think this is the way we're starting, huh? There is a well-known quote from Sir Winston Churchill, who of course was the prime minister in Great Britain during World War II. Early in his political career, he made the statement that a bulldog's nose is slanted so that the bulldog can continue to breathe without ever letting go. A bulldog attaches itself to something, it can keep breathing because its nose is slanted back. It never lets go. There's a connection between a bulldog and the Bible's definition, the Bible's description of love, because the Bible says that real love doesn't let go.

It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. Real love never lets go. So when your spouse is bearing a burden, you bear it with them because love bears all things. When your spouse has lost confidence or is starting to become discouraged, you believe with them, you believe alongside, you believe for them in some cases. When your spouse has lost hope, you bring hope to the equation, you bring the hope they need, you hope all things. And when things get hard for both of you, you don't give up. Love endures all things.

It stays connected, stays committed. Basketball. Man, basketball consumed a lot of my life. And there was a time because I did not make it. And I went through a bout with depression. But Roz never gave up on me. She would push me.

Come on, you got to get up. There's something more for you. I think for me and the relationship in itself, there were times where I felt like I wasn't good enough as a wife, as a mom. I kind of in moments gave up on myself, but he would always come back and reaffirm that, yeah, you are this. You are a wife.

You were a wife before I married you, and you are an awesome mom. And so that kind of gave me the confidence to get back in there and keep being a wife and a mom. There was many times where I wanted to quit. I wanted to give up.

I just felt like I couldn't live up to certain expectations, whether it's from other people or myself. And I just wanted to give up. And there were times where I even felt suicidal, and I shared that with you. But she just would get over me and pray over me and encourage me. And sometimes that was what got me through to the next day. I've been going through a little depression recently, and she told me to get up and go to the doctor and get something done about it.

And I did. And life has changed drastically. I was experiencing a lot of anxiety and panic attacks. And so there were times when I think I was taking on too much, and he was there for me and helped me to slow down and support me in that and helped me to heal and overcome that. Last year, just a lot of different things in my own life changed, just kind of one after another. And it was really hard. I just kind of felt like everything was upside down, like, what am I doing with my life? Who am I?

All of this stuff. He just came alongside me and just continually reminded me of this isn't it. Like, this isn't all you were created for. This isn't your whole purpose. You know, your purpose is to point people to Christ, to reflect Him. And I'm thankful that He reminded me of who I'm supposed to be and who I'm representing.

The default setting in a marriage relationship is to be a setting of tenacity, a setting where we say, I'm not going anywhere. I'm here. I'm with you.

Not just I'm stuck, but I am in this with you to help us get to a better place than where we are today, to help us get through a difficult season. I will bear this with you. I'll believe this with you and for you. I'll hope together with you. And I will endure with you.

We're going to get to the other side. Love is tenacious. And things will get hard in a marriage relationship, but you've already made the decision to be tenacious and to stay with it, even when things do get hard. And I know that in a marriage, there can be times when it's hard to stay committed.

It's hard to endure. It's hard to bear another person's burden because things have gotten tough. But when we're bearing with one another, here's what we're saying. When the weight gets heavy on either one of us, our job is to bear that together.

If you are collapsing under the weight, if the weight is causing you to crash, my job is to get under that weight with you and help bear it with you so that you're not bearing it alone. In marriage, we bear all things together. We bear one another's burdens, the Bible says in Galatians 6, verse 2. So bearing all things means I'm not going to bring shame or reproof. I'm not going to abandon you when you're facing a hard time.

I'm going to be here with you as your co-laborer in life. One author says what the Bible is saying here when it says love bears all things is love knows when to keep its mouth shut. Sometimes bearing all things means I'm just going to be here with you in the midst of this and sit here and help you as you're under the pile.

I'm not going to be one who's criticizing or complaining or walking away. And then when it says we're to endure all things together, that's actually a military term. Enduring means to stand fast in battle when there's an onslaught. When the opposing army is coming in your direction, you stand firm.

That's what it means to endure all things. And we're saying in marriage we're going to stand as allies and we're going to endure whatever comes at us and we're going to stand firm together. We're going to recognize our spouse is not our enemy. There is an enemy who wants to destroy our marriage.

It's not our spouse. We endure all things because together we're allies in the spiritual battle that we face in a marriage relationship. So love bears all things and endures all things. Let's also talk about hoping and believing because I think these are important as well. The Bible's not saying we should live in a love fantasy where we just live up high in the sky, oh, nothing's ever wrong and we're just always hopeful and always positive. No, the Bible wants us to live in reality, but in the midst of the reality we're living in, it wants us to lean in the direction of believing the best about another person and having hope for the future. Because the other direction is to believe the worst about somebody else and have no hope for the future. And love will not thrive if you're believing the worst about somebody and you have no hope for the future. So believing and hoping says, again, my default settings in marriage are going to be that when we face tough times and obstacles, when we face reality, my default is I'm going to believe the best about you, I'm going to believe the best about the circumstances, and I'm going to have hope for our future even in the midst of this reality. And ultimately what we're saying is I'm going to believe that God is still here and can still work no matter what we're facing. God can take the ashes that are in front of us, the reality of these ashes, and He can make beauty out of these things.

We believe and we hope because we believe in a God and have hope in a God who is a God who brings beauty from ashes. Yeah, I had worked for the same company for about 20 years. They came in one day and decided to get rid of our entire department, and they just kind of went down the row one by one, laying off people.

I was actually the last person they laid off. That started a four-year-long journey that we went on. I remember I was at Bed Bath and Beyond. It was December 5th, and I was about to buy his birthday present.

And he called me, and I just walked out the store and just sat in the car and cried. But that was definitely one of those moments in our marriage where it was very defining. Everybody else on my team got jobs within the first month, but I was convinced that God wanted me to move in a different direction.

And so he went and registered himself for six courses to start school. So at that point, our roles became very reversed, and that created a lot of conflict in our house. So for that time, I had the only income, and so our income dropped by 90 percent. But now with that load at school, I was having a 20-minute break to sit with the family for a quick meal, and then I would go back down into the basement and continue studying and continue writing papers and staying up all night long. And it was hard. It was exhausting.

It was years of not seeing each other really much. Ultimately, I find a place, I find a position, and we're good. It's like answer to prayer, this is it. We're going to move full steam ahead on this, but it required us moving. So at the end of this long period of our marriage being on autopilot, we suddenly leave everything that we know. All of our support system, all of our friends are home, and now we're in a new place. And we were just lost. We were broken, and we had a lot of repair work to do.

Yeah, and that just threw me into a crazy depression. So as much as I tried to be there for our kids to help them transition well, I was just not there emotionally for them. And so Carlos really had to step it up and be the emotional parent to our kids. But we could sense that we were getting more isolated and more alone, and there were things that she didn't want to put on me because she felt like I was going through a lot, and there were things I didn't want to put on her because she was going through a lot, and that just meant that we weren't sharing and talking to each other, and we were handling things alone. Where things really came to a head, I suppose, we had gone on a weekend retreat, and Carlos just apologizing to me because he felt like he left me behind. But that, I guess, was a good turning point for us because I knew that he was hearing me.

He was listening. I knew she was going through stuff, but I didn't realize how badly she needed me to fight for her. I think one of the lessons that we learned is that no matter how busy things get, we have to have time for each other. And really sharing what we're really going through, not to be hurtful, but just to say, hey, this is what's going on. And keep in mind, when the Bible says we're to bear all things, we don't have to do that alone. The Bible has given us a family, the body of Christ, the local church as a place where together we can bear our challenges in marriage and in life. In fact, one of the lessons I've learned throughout my marriage is that my marriage is always better when Mary Ann and I are engaged with other couples, when we're doing life together with other couples, when we're able to be honest and transparent with other couples about the challenges we faced in marriage or in parenting. Marriage is not intended to be a solo sport or even just a couple being together on their own.

Bearing one another's burdens means we bear them together as husband and wife, but we enlarge the circle at some point and lean on the whole body of Christ to help us in the challenges we're going to face. Now, I recognize that in most marriages, one person is probably more optimistic or more positive, the other person's probably more negative. My wife likes to say that I'm optimistic and she's realistic. Well, when we recognize that these things are true about us, then we have to say, if you're an optimist, you probably need to remember there is a reality that's got to be faced here, and let's not just gloss over the real situation. Let's embrace the reality that's in front of us. Let's step in and love reality, but if you lean in the direction of being the realist, you're also prone to cynicism, you're prone to discouragement. This is where you need to lean in the direction of believing and hoping.

You need to come back to the fact that there is a God who cares about you and who has made promises to you, and he has the power to redeem the situation, whatever it is. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. What a powerful description of love. And just think about it, in a marriage, when we are bearing the weight together, when we are believing together for one another, with one another, when we both have a hope for where our marriage can be, for where God's taking us, and when we are enduring as we face obstacles and challenges and seasons of suffering, love will thrive in that environment. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

What about you? Well, we've been listening to Session 9 from the Love Like You Mean It video series, talking about how real love, sometimes what it looks like is just not letting go, just hanging in when things get tough, saying, I'm not going anywhere. What a great message to hear, even before you get married. I never heard anything like that, that this is what true love looks like, even though I think we had 1 Corinthians 13 read at our wedding. But you don't really understand the words.

And you don't understand how you're going to need bulldog and tenacity. When it gets hard, I'll never forget, most everybody knows my story, my dad leaving when I was seven, so Mom and Dad were divorced when I was a little kid. He comes up to visit me in Detroit when I was probably in my 40s. I pick him up at the airport, and we're driving to a band rehearsal that I'm going to be playing guitar at, and he's a drummer.

So we're having this conversation about music. And I've never talked to my dad about this, but I remember asking him. I'm driving, I look over, and I say, hey, Dad, did you ever regret the divorce? And before I can finish the sentence, he says blank yes, like visceral, like emotional.

And I'm like, really, why? And he's like, biggest mistake of my life, I missed out on you. And I could tell in his words, he's like, I wish I would have tried harder. I wish I would have held on and made it work. And again, it was very difficult, but you could feel in his regret, I wish I would have borne all things.

I wish I would have endured to the very end. And I never expected to hear that from him, but it was right there in front of me. And I know we have folks listening who feel some of that shame and that regret who are maybe in a blended family today. And the word they need to hear is that God can restore, God can heal, God can bring beauty from ashes. There may be that regret, but that doesn't mean God is done or that he can't turn things around in your marriage, in your life, in your family. He can bring healing to that moment. And there's always hope. Of course, our hope is that couples will dive deep into what the Bible has to say about real love and do it with other couples, because we really think marriages grow best.

They do best when we're doing life in community, when we've got other people who can bear the load along with us and other people who can say, we struggle with that too, and we're looking for help and hope. We put together this new video series called Love Like You Mean It, and our goal with this series is that couples will get with other couples online if that's how you still need to do that, or getting together in small groups. If that works where you are, the Love Like You Mean It video series is now available.

You can get more information, see some clips from the series. Go to familylifetoday.com, and the information is available there. Again, the series is called Love Like You Mean It. It works for small groups or for Sunday school.

Or if you just want to go through it together as a couple, you can do that as well. Find out information about the series and about the book Love Like You Mean It when you go to our website, familylifetoday.com. If you don't have a copy of the book yet, you can order it from us. Again, familylifetoday.com is the website or call to order the video series or the book. Call 1-800-358-6329.

That's 1-800-F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. Now tomorrow we're going to talk about what we do when we just feel like we are out of love, like there's nothing left. The supply is gone.

We just don't have it anymore. The Bible speaks to that, and we'll talk about that tomorrow. Hope you can tune in and be with us for that. I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, along with our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Ann Wilson, I'm Bob Lapine. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life of Little Rock, Arkansas, a crew ministry. Help for today. Hope for tomorrow.