True Love: Being Happy Together: Part V
When we talk about the topic of True Love: Being Happy Together … this includes moving from selfishness to companionship, becoming together, interpersonal communion, the gift of each other, welcoming and accepting each other, attentiveness and truthfulness, sharing yourself with each other, making sacrifices for each other, making room for each other in each other’s life, forgiving each other and asking for forgiveness, comforting and helping each other heal, being at the service of the other, having courage and taking action.
The next question is What are the other pieces and what do they truly include and look like concretely in every day life?
10. I Am At Your Service
Just as Christ serves his bride, the church, you are to serve your spouse and your family. Many people, when they hear serve your spouse… they think of women being submissive to their husbands or having to be their servant all day and wait on him hand and foot or vice versa. That is not exactly what this means.
Service is an activity that fulfills our human need to share with others our God-given goodness and gifts. Serving others is an act of love that gives joy and connects us with one another (it is not an act of obligation, duty, and is most definitely not a burden). When we share our gifts and talents with others, we affirm the good and our giftedness - the giftedness we are, the giftedness God has given us, and the giftedness - the gift of the other. A marriage will not survive and move into deeper joy if the beloved’s are not willing to have a servant mindset… this includes humbling one-self, and looking past one self to see the good of the other and to share your gifts, that God is asking you to share, with the other. Little acts of love are service, the little things you do for each other in the marriage, or even the big things you do for each other in the marriage, are acts of love. Again, this service is never forced service, not indentured service, and definitely not slavery etc. The service we are referring to here and the servant mindset we are referring to here is an act of love. Remember that God created both of you to be helpmates to each other; he created you for each other. Additionally, parenthood and work are both different acts of love. In your marriage, you are also called to serve God through your marriage, through loving each other, caring for each other. You are living your life with the intent of serving God and each-other in everything you do. In this heart space and mindset you must be with and for each other and united in your desire to serve God. Again, service here is the same… serving in this sense, is acts of love. We see this most represented in the Holy Family, we we see how the Holy Family served each other while simultaneously serving God.
When it comes to parenthood, parenthood is not a burden. Parenthood is an act of love. Parenthood is an overflowing self-giving of love to each other where you give your self-giving love to each other and create a child. In a truly loving relationship, this is the case. Love is not abused or mis-used, or forced. In a True Love relationship, being physically intimate with someone is a gift of self to the other, and an act of love. Becoming a parent is an act of love, and parenthood is an act of love.
Based on Happy Together by John Bosio )
With Analysis, Insight, Writing and Perspective by Mary E. Grenchus
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