I Will Love You for You

I will love you for you / Not for what you have done or what you will become / I will love you for you / I will give you the love, the love, that you never knew.// ~ JJ Heller

Yesterday afternoon I watched the movie Fireproof Your Marriage, the story of a Godless marriage between a fireman and a career woman. One of the inmates had suggested that I would like it. One of the key lines in it was never leave your partner, initially used in relation to the fire crew but foreshadowing the marriage breakdown. I was slightly disturbed by some facets of the movie—in a good way. I think oftentimes in relationships couples tune out from what their partners need and then simply walk away rather than try to make it work.

There was a lot of anger in this movie, especially towards the wife from the husband which I found disturbing (not in a good way). I kept thinking any minute he was going to hit his wife. He didn’t but still it was stressful to watch him take several strips off of her verbally. I am sure her silence was also hard for men to watch. Her anger turned inwards and her remarks were cutting. Watching the marriage disintegrate was painful.

Watching the shaky ground become solid was intriguing in some ways. As the couple tried to build their house anew on rock was a reminder of how challenging the work of restitution really is. The husband began the program with no love in his heart, doing things without any real feeling in them. A guy I once knew would often respond with, “it’s the least I can do…and I always do the least I can do” whenever he did something nice to me. He was trying to be funny but I soon learned the truth that resonated within him in that regard. He always did just enough—not enough to spark a complaint but not enough to really wow me either.

Love requires 100% commitment. It means, as JJ Heller sings in the lyrics above, that you give someone the love they never knew but always believed was out there…a love that everyone is worthy of…a love that originated in God who proved through Jesus exactly what the cost of love should be.

Peace,

Suzanne