February is the month we celebrate
love. Valentines Day is a good time to celebrate love but I’m sure if your love
is the real kind, you're celebrating it daily, not just once a year.
I have always been one of those
starry eyed romantics at heart and there’s nothing I enjoy more than a good
romance book. It’s been over forty years since I first saw the movie, “Love
Story” and I still remember how romantic it sounded when Jennifer whispered to
Oliver “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.”
Today I’m a little older, a little wiser and
totally convinced that Jennifer was wrong…so wrong. I have had to say I’m sorry to many people I
love. Not because I purposely did
something to hurt them…but because I’m human, and that sometimes requires an
apology.
In the years since “Love Story” I have read many romance novels and watched my share of chick flicks (an believed some of their lies too!) But life has taught me there's only one Book that can be taken as absolute truth when it comes to human relationships.
In the years since “Love Story” I have read many romance novels and watched my share of chick flicks (an believed some of their lies too!) But life has taught me there's only one Book that can be taken as absolute truth when it comes to human relationships.
The Bible contains many love stories,
but my favorite is the one about Jacob and Rachel. It’s one that’s so familiar
to those of us who grew up hearing the Bible stories, but their story fails to
have meaning until we ourselves find love.
The Bible tells us that Jacob fell
in love with Rachel at first sight. “While he was
still talking with them, Rachel came with her father’s sheep, for she was a
shepherdess. When Jacob saw Rachel… he went over and rolled the stone away from
the mouth of the well and watered (her father’s) sheep. Then Jacob kissed
Rachel and began to weep aloud.” Genesis 29:9-11 (NIV) He cried when he kissed
her! Am I a sentimental old fool, or is that beautiful? I personally have never believed in love at
first sight…I think you have to know someone before you can love them, but I
guess when God is the One who brings two people together, He makes sure there's an instant attraction.
To love and be loved by someone as
intensely as Jacob and Rachel loved each other is almost unimaginable in the
world we live in today. His love was the sacrificial kind. Again in Genesis 29
it tells us, “Jacob was in love with Rachel and
said to her father, “I’ll work for you for seven years in return for your
younger daughter Rachel. So Jacob served
seven years to get Rachel, but they seemed like only a few days to him”. When
you're in love with someone, you get up everyday knowing and feeling that love,
even when you can’t be together.
Their love was not an easy one but
perhaps that’s what made it enduring. They were deceived by family…that hurts, especially if it’s your father and sister who have deceived you. After all that work, Jacob had to marry Rachel’s older sister, Leah.
When Jacob and Rachel were finally given permission to marry, they suffered from the horrible pain of infertility. I can only imagine Rachel’s anguish as Leah gave Jacob one son after another. She became so desperate for a child she cried, “Give me children or I’ll die”
Every time I read their story, I am convinced that Rachel and Jacob had a love that endured everything life threw at them. I think it was because he never stopped adoring her and she was totally devoted to him.
When God finally blessed them with a
son, I’m sure they were ecstatic…their prayers were answered. Even though Jacob
already had ten sons, this was the son given to him by the woman he loved.
When she became pregnant again,
their joy was multiplied.
Sadly, the prayer Rachel prayed during her
infertility became tragically prophetic. She died while giving birth to their
second son. The “Love Story” of the 70’s and the love story of Jacob and Rachel’s are similar in only one way. From both of them, we learn that sometimes love has to be put on hold until eternity.
©
2012 Brenda J. Young
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