End the Fear of Wasted Love

God places love in our hearts when we become a child of God. The Holy Spirit gives us the ability to love. If God is love, therefore, so am I, when I become a child of God. We know that God's love is eternal. Is our love eternal, too?

A man met a woman and fell passionately in love with her. His love was an undying feeling of affection characterized by strength, depth, sincerity, tenderness, devotion, loyalty, and passion. She accepted his love willingly and gloried in it. She thought that it would last forever, that is just how secure it felt to her, and so she lavished love on him in return. He accepted her love and they grew in love and commitment together. The years passed and one of them strayed from the path of commitment. The marriage didn't feel exciting anymore, and so the eyes wandered. Without realizing that it was even happening, one of them dissipated the commitment with an affair.

The spouse had felt the loss of the other person's affection and devotion, and therefore, developed anxiety about the relationship. The anxiety sought relief in the form of another love. The couple divorced and wondered how it ever happened to them. Where did the love go that each of them offered and accepted from each other?

We know that love is a choice and an action, not just a feeling. A person may not feel the same passion for the other as before because he or she chose not to exhibit the affection anymore, but the couple did feel the love at one time. The special love turned to bitterness when it remembered the way it used to be, but what happened to the love that they showed to each other? Did it disappear or remain in the memory of the person that accepted it?

A parent showered love upon a child. The child remembered and developed a loving nature. The child grew up into an adult and the parent died. The child still remembered the parent's love, and it became part of who the child would always be. Does an alienated spouse remember the love, too?

I believe that a person's memory holds the love and cherishes it even after the other person no longer offers it. Like the parent and child, that love becomes a part of whom that person will always be. It helps to explain why, even after decades, that former lovers continue to feel animosity for each other and are not comfortable talking to each other. The love that existed in the past still lives on in their hearts and memory, and has become a part of whom they are. It's hard not to feel resentment at its discontinuance. There may not be a logical reason for the resentment, but maybe that IS the reason because LOVE IS ETERNAL.

God is love, and therefore, so am I. I think that my love and the love I've received must be eternal, too.