Love Is Not Supposed to Hurt

1Corinthians 13:4-8(NLT)
 “4 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud 5 or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. 6 It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. 7 Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. 8 Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever!”

I had just flown home from visiting my family in the south. My two-year-old daughter was with me, and my soon to be ex-husband was on his way to pick us up from the airport. I knew it was going to be a rough night because while I was away, I’d called and told my husband I wanted a divorce. He didn’t take it well at all. My stomach was in my throat the entire flight home, and I dreaded the thought of being in his company, but at the time, I had nowhere else to go and had no other choice but to go home with my husband. 

I should have had a plan. I should have waited until details were in place before I declared that I wanted out, but I was young. I really didn’t care about a plan, I just wanted to breathe, and I felt like I hadn’t done that in a very long time. Whenever my ex was upset, it seemed to me that everything in the environment conspired with his rage. He yelled. He punched the walls or anything in his reach, and sometimes that ‘anything in his reach’ was me. I had been on the receiving end of his anger and punches for so long that I didn’t even feel that it was me living my life anymore. I was a shell of who I once was but managed to preserve a little piece of that woman for my daughter.

That night was horrible. I thought I had braced myself for it, but there was really no way to do that. I was a punching bag the entire ride home, and it got worse. That night resulted in another domestic dispute. The police were called, and he was arrested.

I can’t say for sure how I ended up with a man who abuses, but I remember people telling me when we were dating that “He loves hard.” I wasn’t wise enough during that time to equate those words with other words like obsession, jealousy, anger, rage, and out of control, but I certainly learned the hard way. As individuals that have been abused and are being abused, we need to know that there are other ways to learn the lessons of life and love, and those ways  do not involve things like pain, abuse, and suffering. 

One of the first things that we learn about God’s love is the reality of His kindness and patience.  He tells us in 1Corinthians 13:4-5 that love is not jealous, abusive, belligerent, vengeful, irritable, or hurtful. Love is patient and kind, and this is the way our Heavenly Father loves us. It’s the way He wants others to love us, and it’s the way He wants us to love others as well. We learn from God’s example that love isn’t supposed to hurt. Love should nurture us and make us better people. We often think of love as this romantic and emotional ooey-gooey-ness that makes our hearts flutter like butterflies. That stuff is fun of course, but it’s too vacillating and fleeting to match the quality, longevity, and stability of real love. 1John 4:8 tells us that God is love. He’s the definitive authority on the subject, so we don’t get to put our own spin on how love looks and operates. He’s told us what love is, and based on His truth, we can discern and understand when we’re not being treated with love, and when we, ourselves, are not operating in love.

Jesus Christ lived by God’s love. He left us a perfect and lasting example of how to do that. The twelve disciples that were taught by him also closely walked and talked with him during his ministry on earth, and he loved them very much. In John 13:34(NLT), he told them, “So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other.” Our beautiful and beloved Lord and Savior set love in perpetual and continuous motion by commanded us to carry on loving just the way that he did. Because of the enduring and powerful love of God that our Master demonstrated, we have the distinct privilege and responsibility to let God’s love be our life’s goal and work.

Just because someone tells us that they love us, it doesn’t mean it’s true. Love doesn’t hurt or make us feel bad about ourselves, and this is a lesson that we don’t have to learn the hard way. It is not God’s Will for His children to live a life of suffering and despair. He gave the life of our precious Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, as a sacrifice for our lives so that we can live abundantly! This is how much God loves us. He has made it overwhelmingly clear He has stamped us deserving of love. This is the way He sees us, and we must learn to see ourselves this way. We are worthy to be loved, because this is what God tells us. When we believe this in our hearts and begin to live by His love and Word, we will make wiser choices and decisions, and only accept the kind of love that doesn’t hurt. ■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

“Love Is Not Supposed to Hurt”, written by Kim for https://rescuefromdomesticviolence.blogspot.com© 2023. All rights reserved. All praise and honor to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.