How Does Love Grow [Up]?

New lovers often ask ‘how do we keep our love just like this?’ Hand in hand with soaring emotions and high hopes they look upon the wreckages and wraith-like existences of loves gone before and wonder how to avoid such a fate. We want to maintain, keep, hold on to what we have. But perhaps we can’t. Perhaps this focus of ‘keeping’ is the wrong focus to begin with. Instead of wondering how love can stay the same, maybe we should be asking how it should grow up.

New love, like a new baby, is full of wonder, newness, sweetness, and discovery. Many a parent soaking in the giggles and heart churning sweetness of their little one wishes they could freeze time. Hold on to that moment forever. But the tension of life is that there is no holding on forever. To anything. There’s only change. Our task, then, is to see that the change is growth and not decay – maturity, not dysfunction.

My friend had a grandma who lived for babies. With every new grand baby born the child before (who had been previously doted on) was forgotten. She wasn’t interested in growth or change. She just wanted babies. It could be argued that she never loved any of the children – she just loved the stage.  We can treat love that way.  Do we really love the person? Or do we just love the stage? When the stage has ended, will we assume love itself has?

I’m a few years in to my second decade of marriage and this has been on my mind. How does love grow up? I don’t want to focus on the past, on what’s behind us, or on who we were. We are not static beings, and neither is our love. I want to see ours’ become mature. Full of deeper understanding, a resistance to offense, an ability to grow in our appreciation for the other’s strengths and in our grace for the other’s weaknesses.

Strong marriages are so much more than a source of happiness for the partners. Like a deeply rooted tree they provide shelter, sustenance,  stability and hope to many around them – their children, grandchildren, churches and communities. So maybe you need to stop asking – how do we get back there? And start asking – how do we grow from here?