What love overlooks

A woman celebrated her 50th wedding anniversary with her husband. She was a wonderful wife, mother and grandmother, and on this special occasion, one of her grandchildren asked her the secret to her happy and enduring marriage. She smiled and said, “Well, sweetheart, when your granddaddy and I married, I made a list of ten things I would overlook in his personality. Just ten things I didn’t like, but was willing to forgive. I decided on that day that anytime one of those ten things would come up, I would overlook it for the sake of harmony in our marriage.” One of the grandchildren said, “Granny, tell us the list. We want to know what was on the list.” She paused and said, “You know, to be honest with you, I never really wrote them down. But every time your grandfather would do something that made me mad, I would think to myself, ‘Lucky for him that’s one of the things on my list.’ “

Relationships are hard work, and difficulties and conflicts will come. But they are not the end of the world. Real love is willing to overlook slights, annoyances, and petty disagreements, choosing instead to take a long term view. “We love,” the apostle John wrote, “because He first loved us.” Our only hope as human lovers is to allow the love of Christ to flow through us. We can hope, believe, and endure because we have been perfectly loved.