Love is a verb
05/10/07 17:06 Filed in: Musings
So a married couple from Bosnia who didn't realise they were chatting each other up on the internet are divorcing.
Sana Klaric (whose pen-name was ‘Sweetie’) and husband Adnan (pen-name ‘Prince of Joy’) spent hours in an online chat room telling each other about their marriage troubles. It wasn’t long before they were falling in love again.
The truth emerged when the two online lovers agreed to meet up in real life, and found themselves face to face with each other. What a momnent! Now they are divorcing, each accusing the other of being unfaithful.
According to reports Sana said, “I was suddenly in love. It was amazing. We seemed to be stuck in the same kind of miserable marriage. How right that turned out to be.”
Her husband Adnan, said: "I still find it hard to believe that Sweetie, who wrote such wonderful things, is actually the same woman I married and who has not said a nice word to me for years".
I don’t know what’s the saddest part – the hypocrisy of accusing the other of unfaithfulness, or the stubborn refusal to see that they could make it work after all, or the seeking of happiness in a relationship apart from the one your promised yourself to for life.
Contrary to popular myth, the love is not an emotion, but an act of the will. The word love is a verb, a ‘doing’ word as my school-teacher would have said. Love is not found when we follow our hormones, or our heartstrings, but love is developed when we continually act in a loving way day after day to another person. Certainly, love is not devoid of emotion, but emotion is not the driving force. If it was, marriage would be as unstable as our emotions – and that is what happens to those who make their feelings their guide.
What is sad about this couple is that if they had put the same effort into their marriage as they put into demonstrating their caring, wonderful characters to an apparent stranger, then they would have found their marriage transformed. But to do that you need to be able to repent and ask for forgiveness and give it – and that’s a gospel thing.
Sana Klaric (whose pen-name was ‘Sweetie’) and husband Adnan (pen-name ‘Prince of Joy’) spent hours in an online chat room telling each other about their marriage troubles. It wasn’t long before they were falling in love again.
The truth emerged when the two online lovers agreed to meet up in real life, and found themselves face to face with each other. What a momnent! Now they are divorcing, each accusing the other of being unfaithful.
According to reports Sana said, “I was suddenly in love. It was amazing. We seemed to be stuck in the same kind of miserable marriage. How right that turned out to be.”
Her husband Adnan, said: "I still find it hard to believe that Sweetie, who wrote such wonderful things, is actually the same woman I married and who has not said a nice word to me for years".
I don’t know what’s the saddest part – the hypocrisy of accusing the other of unfaithfulness, or the stubborn refusal to see that they could make it work after all, or the seeking of happiness in a relationship apart from the one your promised yourself to for life.
Contrary to popular myth, the love is not an emotion, but an act of the will. The word love is a verb, a ‘doing’ word as my school-teacher would have said. Love is not found when we follow our hormones, or our heartstrings, but love is developed when we continually act in a loving way day after day to another person. Certainly, love is not devoid of emotion, but emotion is not the driving force. If it was, marriage would be as unstable as our emotions – and that is what happens to those who make their feelings their guide.
What is sad about this couple is that if they had put the same effort into their marriage as they put into demonstrating their caring, wonderful characters to an apparent stranger, then they would have found their marriage transformed. But to do that you need to be able to repent and ask for forgiveness and give it – and that’s a gospel thing.