Love Like You Mean It

Love Like You Mean It

No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.

1 John 4:12

Angela teetered as she walked across a medical conference room, thighs chafing, sweat glands sweating. She tried to squeeze into a regular-size chair, but her lumpy hips snagged on the arms. She moved to an extra-wide armless chair, but then she couldn’t cross her legs.

A dietitian helped her climb aboard a stationary bicycle that had been fitted with an oversize seat. But when Angela tried to pedal, thick rolls of abdominal tissue pressed against her fleshy thighs, impeding movement.

“Every move I made was an effort,” Angela admitted not long afterward. By then, however, she was back down to her actual weight of 110 pounds.

Angela had been zipped into a bulky beige “empathy suit” designed to help medical personnel better understand the plight of their obese patients. The suit weighs only thirty pounds, but it feels heavier and effectively extends the size of small, low-weight people like Angela. Its heft and bulk is intended to give them a new, deepened understanding of the workaday world of the obese.^a

Does it work? You bet. As Angela saw firsthand, even a simple movement such as walking may be challenging for the obese. Having worn the suit “makes me feel more respectful, more aware” of other people’s feelings, she says.

That’s the power of putting oneself in the skin of another—literally. It’s called empathy and it’s at the heart of every loving relationship. When we can walk in each other’s shoes and see the world from another person’s perspective, we are loving like we mean it.

Take the time today to put yourself in one another’s shoes. How would you feel waking up to the demands of each other’s lives? What would you look forward to? What would you dread? How would life be different for you if you were living it in your spouse’s shoes? Allow these new insights to give you a deeper understanding of your spouse’s perspective.

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

—Henry Drummond

^a 30