Love Conquers All

Love Conquers All

Most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sins.

1 Peter 4:8

We packed a picnic lunch with tuna fish sandwiches and Diet Pepsi and drove from Pasadena up the coast to Santa Barbara, three or so hours away. It was Les’s idea—we’d been married just a year. Okay, I thought, this could be fun. We’ll have time to talk as we drive, and we can eat our lunch on the beach. But Les, now in graduate school, had a different idea. He was one week into a stressful summer school course, taking Greek! So he brought along a taped lecture to listen to on our drive and a pack of flash cards to study for his next exam. So much for romance, at least on that day.

I don’t want to paint an incorrect picture; Les can be very romantic. On my birthday this year, for example, he took me to the swankiest restaurant in town and had prearranged with the maîTRe d’ to have a gift delivered to our table with my favorite dessert.

Still, in our home, romance can be a hit-or-miss endeavor. Of course, I own my part of the misses. Like the time I planned a weekend getaway as a surprise for Les. That’s when I learned he doesn’t think surprises are very romantic! Or the time I thought he would enjoy going to a theater production instead of skiing with his friends. He didn’t.

Well, if you can’t already tell, we haven’t discovered the secret to romance in marriage. Maybe that makes us romantically impaired. But we have discovered that a big part of cultivating romance is learning to love each other in spite of expectations for romance that aren’t met—even when our partners seem blatantly unromantic. That’s a lesson couples can learn from Peter when he writes, “Continue to show deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sins.”

Whether it’s different romance instincts or something else altogether, you and your spouse will have certain areas of mismatch, and that’s when true love, covering over those areas in grace, can triumph. Think about one such area for your marriage. How can you “show deep love for each other” today?

You will find as you look back upon your life that the moments . . . when you have truly lived, are the moments when you have done things in a spirit of love.

—Henry Drummond