CUPIDS AND DIAMONDS

WRITER: RICHARD BURGUET

We recently discovered that the diamond had fallen out of my wife’s engagement ring. She was in tears, searching everywhere she could think to find the stone. We checked the vacuum cleaner bag; we looked in the couch cushions; we ran a flashlight across the hardwood floors hoping to see more than a dust bunny, all to no avail. In talking about the loss, she said it brought her sadness because the ring was a token of our relationship. I admit that it does make me sad to have lost a diamond, but the reality is that the diamond was only a symbol of my love and commitment to her and to our lifelong relationship.

When I decided she was the “one” for me, I knew she was the only woman I was willing to commit to love and live with until “death do us part.” I also knew I should purchase a ring and ask her to marry me. Like most young men, I did not have a great deal of extra money and wondered how I would ever afford to buy an expensive engagement ring, but because I valued our relationship so much, I was determined to find a way to do it. I went to the jewelry stores, shopped around, and finally settled on purchasing the stone with one jeweler and having a ring fabricated by another. The only problem was gathering the cash to pay for it. I saved. I worked odd jobs in addition to my eight-to-five work. I made payments and finally arranged to borrow an old car from my father to drive for a while so I could sell my present vehicle all to pay for the ring. I was willing to sacrifice whatever it might take to cement my relationship with my wife-to-be. Today, those things are four children, two grandchildren, seven moves, and thirty-five years past. Our relationship continues to grow and deepen. That lost diamond, in a very small way, was only a little insignificant picture of a lifelong commitment to our love relationship.

I truly do love my wife, but hard as I may, I don’t love her perfectly. February is the month of hearts and valentines, wine and roses, chocolates and cupids… the season we think about love. It is when our schoolchildren make cards to share with all their classmates. (“Yes son, you even have to give a valentine to that creepy girl!”) In thinking about love and relationships, I am reminded of what the New Testament says about love. In the original Greek, it uses two main words to talk about love. We who speak English are deprived when it comes to a vocabulary for love. You know that we overuse the word. I love riding my bike, good hamburgers, music, my truck, my children, my wife, and I love God. Now, I hope it goes without saying that the way I love my truck is much different from the way in which I love God. My love for my wife is a higher love than the love I have for bike riding, too! Generally, the New Testament words for love are phileo and agape. They form good categories for defining relationships and love, starting with the lesser to the greater.

The first term, phileo, is the kind of general love we have toward things and those relationships that are not as close or dear to us. It has been called “brotherly love,” and that is accurate to some degree, but it extends to the way we love things, as well. Phileo can mean our emotions of attachment and affection. It is a response to something we find delightful.

The higher type of love is what the New Testament calls agape. That word is used to describe the love God has for His Son, Jesus Christ. It is the way God loves humanity. It is an unconditional love like a parent has for a child. It is giving, forgiving, selfless, altruistic, and gracious. It is the kind of genuine love that the Apostle Paul wrote about in 1 Corinthians 13: “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.”

Relationships built on the foundation of genuine agape love are the kinds that endure the stresses of life and time. As I imitate the kind of love God has for His children toward my wife and my children, even toward those relationships that are more of an armslength away from my heart, I am reflecting the best kind of love. The little stone may have fallen out of the setting of my beloved’s engagement ring somewhere along our way, but that doesn’t in any way mean that my relationship with her is diminished or that my love for her has faded. Maybe this is another time for me to love her in much the same way that God loves me.