Love Covereth All Sins

Happy Valentine's Day!

In celebration of Valentine's Day being on a Sunday this year, I thought I'd share a scripture on love that I found this morning.

Proverbs 10:12 -- Hatred stirreth up strifes: love covereth all sins.

This scripture has so many implications, from God's love and Christ's love covering our sins to how we should love others and forgive them. I wanted to share a few thoughts I had when pondering this scripture.

One thing I was thinking about was a story from The Five Love Languages book, the book I just finished reading.

The author told about a couple who'd been married for years, but their marriage was not a healthy one. Both felt their emotional love tanks were empty and the husband often lashed out at his wife, mistreating her with unkind words.

She wanted to go to marriage counseling, but the husband refused, saying she was at fault, so she could go if she wanted. Some of her close friends told her it was a toxic situation and that she should get out. She wanted to, because she was unhappy in the marriage, but when she prayed, she felt that leaving wasn't the answer. She went to counseling (to the author of the book) and together, they talked about what it meant to love your enemy. She sadly agreed that her husband had become an enemy to her and that instead of love, she felt hate towards him because of how he treated her.

Then they talked together about love as an action, rather than an emotion. They worked together to find her husband's love language and she told him she was working on becoming a better wife. Then she went to work showing him love, no matter how he reacted. Slowly, he began to soften towards her and she was able to help him learn her love language.

Now, because she was willing to show love towards someone who wasn't showing love, their marriage is stronger and healthier than it's ever been.

I really love this story. I know there truly are toxic situations that you just need to get out of (and have witnessed first hand some of these), but I know the Lord will direct us as we are trying our hardest to love in hard situations.

I also love this story because sometimes marriage can be like this. This is an extreme situation, but there will be times in every marriage where you feel things are unfair or have hard feelings for your spouse. Choosing to love in those moments, when you least want to love, can be so hard, but will strengthen your marriage and your love for your spouse more than anything else. And the Lord can help us do it.

I think this scripture also applies in other situations, especially with family. Ben and I have talked a lot about this lately and we both agree that it's so important in families, where emotions and opinions and misunderstandings get in the way and can hurt feelings, to love in a way that "covereth all sins." No one is perfect, but when their imperfections hurt us, it's hard to let that go and just continue loving them. I think that, just like in marriage, God can help us in those moments to love as He would.

And, of course, God's love "covereth all sins." I will be forever grateful that He loves us enough to forgive us for everything we do wrong, because it sure is a lot. And I'm sure it hurts Him when we do those things. But He's always there for us, no matter what, just waiting to love us.