Outgrowing Butterflies

Streetcar, Daniel Caesar

After nine months of long walks under the moonlight, spontaneous fried chicken runs, and countless sunsets across Berkeley, my first long-term relationship was still going strong. Sure, we had our disagreements now and then, but overall dating was great—even if it took work sometimes.

And yet—a nagging thought persisted, curbing my happiness. Maybe I’m still in the honeymoon phase, a small voice would whisper in the back of my mind. The honeymoon phase—the period in the relationship when a couple is so enamored by each other that they ignore each other’s inherent flaws. Friends, and sometimes family, would warn me, “No one is perfect,” and to not be surprised when I was inevitably disappointed by my boyfriend’s imperfections while dating. Of course, they only said this out of love, because they wanted to protect me from getting hurt, but I didn’t want to imagine such disappointment. In middle school, we all memorized that two negatives make a positive in math; however, two sinners in a relationship does not make either of their sins disappear. Often, a relationship makes their sin even more clear.

So after about a year of dating, I braced myself for the end of our “honeymoon” phase.

Maybe I’ll notice his habit of unapologetically belching in public, or his questionable sleep schedule, or more seriously, I’ll learn that he is less respectful of the women in his life when I’m not around.

However, nine months in and I came to the exact opposite revelation. The honeymoon phase did end—not in how he viewed me, but rather how I viewed myself. I grew hyper aware of all my little habits that could aggravate someone, mostly because I knew that these same habits would irritate me in someone else. From my knack for falling asleep anywhere, to my tendency to run late to engagements, to my oversharing because of my compulsive desire to talk—he accepts each and every one without complaint. Whenever I fall asleep while we’re talking late (and sometimes not so late) at night, he gives up his sleep trying to wake me up to send me home. Every time I’m late to one of our dates, I not only show a lack of respect for his time but also my own. During some of our conversations, I overshare conflicts with mutual friends that only serve as an additional burden for him. After realizing these tendencies of mine, I questioned why he chose to love me. I know my strengths, yet I also found myself hard to love.

Of course, none of these habits are new. My family has been telling me I need to address my lateness or verbosity for years, but somehow, I didn’t notice them till I was in a relationship with someone else. As I became more aware of my flaws, I felt the urge to change my ways. I wasn’t trying to change because he told me to or to attract him in some way. But rather, I wanted to change out of my own love for him. Because I cared for him, I wanted to alter my ways in a way that would be considerate of him—uplifting, and not aggravating. I wanted to show that I was respectful of his sleep, his time, our friendships, and our boundaries.

In his letter to the Ephesians, Apostle Paul says that the love in marriage is an earthly model of Jesus’ love for His bride, the Church. I know that dating is but a shadow of marriage, and marriage is only a model of Jesus’ love for the Church on Earth. Yet through this relationship, I felt that I had caught a glimpse of the magnitude of the love God has for us and the love that we are to show in response.

Whenever someone asks me why I obey God, my almost rote answer is that obedience stems out of my love for God. I choose to turn away from my sinful ways out of my desire to please God. However, although I repeated this answer to others, I struggled to understand it myself. How could you change out of love?

It was through experiencing my own growing relationship that this head knowledge began to transfer to heart knowledge. It clicked. Of course, we would try to change or limit how much we hurt someone or else seek to please them. Likewise, as a Christian I can recognize the love God has bestowed on me, and in response, strive to obey His laws out of love for Him.

As I grew in my understanding of our love for God as His children, the magnitude of God’s love for us also became clearer. Similarly to how my partner loves me despite all of my flaws that only hurt him, God also loves us despite how much we pain and disobey Him. Even so, God’s love is infinitely greater as He loves us perfectly when we can never love Him in this perfect way in return. Unlike my partner, God is fully deserving of my love as my Father, my Creator, yet I repeatedly turn against Him.

As I sat quietly on the couch in my apartment, I felt an overwhelming wave of gratitude as I made these connections for the first time. Gratitude for my partner’s selfless love for me to bear with the sins that I’m still working on. Gratitude for my family’s unconditional love as they saw me make the same mistakes over and over again. Gratitude for God’s perfect and all-encompassing love that He would love me despite my sins.