Probably similar to most of you I am a fellow fan of the TV series "How I Met Your Mother." After watching this show, I always find myself reflecting on one of the witty and insightful remarks that were made. This show is like a modern day mixture of Friends and Full House, and every time I watch it I feel the need to laugh and hug someone simultaneously. (anyone catch that full house hugging reference, or just me?) I watched a rerun of "How I Met Your Mother" the other day, and I caught a line Marshall said that I never noticed before. It was, "Being in a couple is hard. And committing and making sacrifices: it's hard. But if it's the right person then it's easy. Looking at that girl and knowing she is all you really want in the world." This really struck me. If you know me at all, you'll know I always say "love is sacrifice". Even though I say this all the time marshall made me realize that I need to do a gut check to see if I am truly applying my philosophy to my relationships. At that moment a montage of the relationships I get to observe in my life played in my head, strangely to the tune of Michael Bolton's When A Man Loves A Woman. I thought about my parents and how they so effortlessly sacrifice for one another. Dad doesn't care to mow a dozen extra yards for their beach trip that my mom so desperately needed. And even though my mom has eaten a sand which every day for lunch she will go to my dads favorite cheap sub place just to see him smile. I am so lucky that my parents love each other so effortlessly. They are a wonderful example of this kind of love. They demonstrate perfectly my philosophy.
The next frame in my montage goes to my brother and his girlfriend. After so many years of individual bitterness, when they are together all of that disappears. Even when they simply think of each other every worry is gone from their minds without effort (and often times this is what they must do because it is a long distance relationship, for now). They are almost infatuated by one another, and they would do almost anything for one another without a second thought. They make loving each other seem easy as pie. Another couple to reinforce my theory.
Lastly, my montage moved the best example out there. It moved to the fact that God loves me (and everyone else) this way. I mean, he sacrificed the ultimate for me out of love. Without a doubt, God wants me and would do anything to have me. GUT CHECK: I realize that I am not returning this love because I am not sacrificing enough! I can't even roll my butt out of bed every sunday morning for church. I go occasionally on wednesday nights and pray before meals and bed (if hunger and sleep don't get the best of me). Why did I stop reading my bible and writing in my prayer journal like I used to do every night? The truth is that God should be all I really want out of life because everything else will fade! Therefore, I need to fully commit and sacrifice for him, as he did for me. I need to seek him with everything I have until it becomes effortless. Jeremiah 11:12-13 "Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart".
I try to treat my relationship with the Lord as a relationship with a dear loved one. And if I make this commitment of sacrificing more to the Lord then I should do the same with the other dear loved ones in my life. I realize that I do not always follow Marshall's advice with my boyfriend or my best friend. They love me...I mean really love me. And overall they want me in their life so they sacrifice for me always. Maybe not always effortlessly but mostly easily (haha). I really love them too, and I hope to selflessly sacrifice for them out of my love. I am 100% positively happy they are in my life, and I hope to keep them there for as long as possible.
Thanks CBS and Marshall Erikson for making me do a gut check. I say that love is sacrifice, but now I need to prove it.
