LOVE AND CHERISH

Jan Karon, author of the popular “Mitford Series” novels, dealt with two questions from a young woman named Lace in the novel, ‘Come Rain or Come Shine.’

“Lace, you recently asked two very thoughtful questions. Is cherish the same as love? And how do we cherish someone?

I believe cherish to be a higher plane within the context of love, something like the upstairs level in a home. Love must come first, for without it, it would be impossible to access the higher and perhaps nobler realm of cherishing and holding dear.

So how can we cherish another? Might there be one powerful but simple method that leads to the richness we find in the act of cherishing the beloved?

As I studied and prayed, there it was. In Romans 12:10. A one-word marriage manual in a vigorous, no-nonsense verb: Outdo… “Outdo one another,” says Paul, “in showing honor.” What outdo means, of course, is going above and beyond. Outdo means pressed down, shaken, and running over.

What outdo does not mean is a competition in which one person wins the game and the other loses. To outdo another means you both win. In Ephesians 5:28, we’re told that he who loves his wife loves himself. In effect, a good marriage happens when the happiness of the other is essential to your own happiness. We might say that a good marriage is a contest of generosities.”

“Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh?” Jesus