“So it’s not gonna be easy. It’s going to be really hard; we’re gonna have to work at this everyday, but I want to do that because I want you. I want all of you, forever, everyday. You and me… everyday.” – Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook
There are two sides to love. One is the face of happiness, the face of youthful dreams and colorful summers. The face of two people in mutual attraction and admiration, proud of each other’s beauty and strength. This is the face that most people know, the only face that some people are willing to receive.
But there is another face to love. The other face we hardly look upon because we do not have the strength to bear its sorrows. This is the face of suffering, the face of loss, the face of winter. This is that love we bear when we see our beloved suffering, when for one reason or another, our journey with them is no longer as enjoyable as before.
This is not always to our liking, but to reject this face is to reject the fullness of love. To desire summer without suffering the cold is to have but weak feelings, not true affection. To stay only when things are enjoyable is to not have gone to the very depths of compassion, the love that endures, that fights, that triumphs through all life’s troubles.
What kind of love do we really want? What kind of love do we truly possess? Say not that you love if you know only but one face and not the other. For love is both the happiness and the sorrow of it. It is both the light and the darkness of the journey getting there. Love lacks nothing, will always give more than it thought it could and will always believe no matter how great the storm.
“You love me. Real or not real?”
I tell him, “Real.”
– Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay
Love… bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. Love never fails. – 1 Corinthians 13, WEBBE
The thing about hope is that it’s a positive force that shines the most when it’s dark. When everything’s going well, we hardly notice it’s there. But when things go against us, when our dreams fade and when we see no immediate reprieve from our troubles, that’s when hope does its best work for us.
"Where Hope Can Be Found"